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WOMAN 

AND  THE, 
SHADOW 


KENEALY 


WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW 


BY 

ARABELLA   KENEALY, 

AUTHOR  OF  "DR.  JANET  OF  HARLEY  STREET,"  "SOME  MEN  ARE  SUCH 

GENTLEMEN,"  "BELINDA'S  BEAUX,"  "MOLLY  AND  HER 

MAN-OF-WAR,"  "THE  HON.  MRS.  SPOOR," 


CHICAGO  AND  NEW  YORK: 
RAND,  McNALLY  &  COMPANY, 

PUBLISHERS. 


TO 

MAJOR-GENERAL  JOHN    MACDONALD 

THIS  BOOK  IS  INSCRIBED 
WITH  THE  AUTHOR'S 

HIGH  ADMIRATION  AND  REGARD. 


Copyright,  1898,  by  Rand,  McNally  &  Co. 


WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER   I. 

"SHE   IS  COMING  TO-DAY!" 

"  'How  much  for  a  bachelor?    Who  wants  to  buyi 

In  a  wink  every  maiden  responded,  'I — I.' 
In  short,  at  a  largely  extravagant  price, 
The  bachelors  all  were  sold  off  in  a  trice." 

Lady  Kershaw  opened  a  letter  under  cover  of  the 
breakfast  table,  her  eyes  traveling  furtively  toward 
her  son  at  its  further  end. 

"Ham  and  eggs,  mother?"  he  queried,  unconcern- 
edly. 

With  that  letter  in  her  hand  she  wondered  how  he 
could  be  so  cool.  She  forgot  he  had  not  even  a  sus- 
picion of  the  circumstances  prompting  it.  She  read 
it  through  and  laid  it  beside  her,  while  she  poured  tea 
with  a  hand  grown  capable  by  experience,  though  this 
morning  unsteadied  by  events.  How  should  she  break 
the  news  to  him?  She  was  not  a  weak  woman,  but 
she  entertained  a  wholesome  respect  for  this  her 
younger  son. 

Some  ray  of  mind-telepathy — common  enough  be- 
tween persons  in  unison — moved  him  to  introduce  the 
subject. 

"We  shall  have  to  let  the  old  place,"  he  said, 
abruptly.  "I  was  talking  with  Pugh  last  night  about 
it." 

"Oh,  Richard!" 

' '  I  know, ' '  he  said.     ' '  Don 't  let  us  go  over  it  again, 


2136S53 


6  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

mother.  If  anything  else  were  possible  it  would  be 
different.  But  there  it  is,  and  I'm  afraid  we  must 
make  the  best  of  it.  I  'm  to  see  Pugh  again  this  morn- 
ing. " 

His  tone  was  matter-of-fact,  but  his  face  was  rueful. 

"If  only  you  would  marry  Beatrice,"  his  mother 
sighed. 

He  did  not  appear  in  a  mood  to  marry  anybody,  as 
he  sat  finishing  his  breakfast  abstractedly. 

"So  it  is  all  arranged,  "he  said,  rising.  "Is  there 
anything  you  would  like  me  to  tell  Pugh?" 

Lady  Kershaw  pushed  back  her  chair.  '  'There  is 
something  I  should  like  to  tell  you,  Dick.  " 

He  came  nearer.  "All  right,  mother,"  he  said, 
"don't  take  it  badly.  When  it  comes  to  the  point  we 
can  make  ourselves  happy  enough,  you  will  find. " 

He  saw  her  agitation.  He  touched  her  shoulder. 
"Don't  take  it  badly,  "  he  said  again. 

Then  she  gave  him  the  letter. 

"I  took  it  into  my  own  hands,  Richard;  I  feared 
you  would  never  consent.  I  could  not  bear  to  leave 
the  old  place.  The  girl  is  coming  to-day. ' ' 

Kershaw  read  the  letter  through. 

"Good  heavens,"  he  protested.  "What  could  have 
induced  you  to  consent  to  such  a  thing?  And  for  what 
is  she  coming?  What  is  there  for  her  here?" 

"Her  father  first  wrote  a  month  since.  It  appears 
that  his  father  married  a  Wynne,  so  that  we  are  re- 
motely, very  remotely,  connected.  He  has  made  a 
large  fortune  in  trade,  and  he  wants  her  to  have  the 
advantage  of  a  better  set  than  that  he  can  introduce 
her  to.  He  writes,  as  you  see,  an  honest,  straightfor- 
ward letter.  He  is  evidently  devoted  to  the  girl. 
Now,  don't  be  vexed,  Dick;  other  people  do  it.  It  is 
harmless  enough.  And  he  offers  two  thousand  pounds 
for  her  visit  of  six  months. ' ' 

"Was  there  no  other  proposition,  no  suggestion  of  a 
matrimonial  quest?"  Kershaw  inquired,  with  some 
irony. 

"No,"  Lady  Kershaw  said.  "I  believe  the  man 
honestly  intends  it  as  a  form  of  finishing  education. 


"SHE  IS  COMING  TO-DAY."  7 

He  mentioned,  I  remember,  that  his  health  is  broken, 
that  there  is  nobody  to  look  after  the  girl  in  the  event 
of  his  death,  and  that  if  while  here  she  should  come 
across  some  disinterested,  true-hearted  aristocrat — he 
seems  an  ingenuous  old  fellow,  Richard;  his  girl's 
husband  was  to  be  a  paragon.  But  he  did  not  urge 
her  marriage  as  a  condition  of  her  visit. ' ' 

Kershaw  paced  the  room,  hands  deep  in  pockets. 
He  was  surprised  to  find  himself  less  hostile  to  the 
project  than  he  could  have  supposed  possible.  That 
guerdon  of  two  thousand  pounds,  so  sorely  needed  by 
the  estate,  was,  he  could  not  help  admitting,  a  factor 
to  temper  opposition. 

"We  have  no  facilities, "  he  demurred.  "We  enter- 
tain little.  The  stables  are  empty.  There 's  only  poor 
old  Jane  and  the  brougham.  The  drawing-room  is 
threadbare.  Half  the  house  is  closed.  She  will  expect 
men-servants,  horses  and  carriages,  and  big  functions. 
A  pretentious  little  plutocrat !  Heavens,  mother,  how 
could  you  prepare  such  a  humiliation  for  your- 
self?" 

"The  place  is  good  enough  for  us,  Dick." 

"For  us,  because  we're  fond  of  every  inch  of  it.  It 
is  our  home.  It  is  our  own.  We  are  used  to  it.  But 
how  it  will  strike  a  pork -butcher's  ill-bred  daughter — " 

"Furniture-polish,  Dick — " 

"Well,  how  it  will  strike  a  furniture-polisher's  ill- 
bred  daughter,  who  has  been  used  to  the  luxury  and 
ostentation  these  people  invariably  go  in  for.  Why, 
where  will  she  sleep?" 

' '  I  thought  of  that.  I  will  change  to  the  blue  room, 
and  she  shall  have  mine.  " 

"No, "he  objected,  "we  must  not  begin  that  style 
of  thing.  She  must  take  the  house  as  she  finds  it.  If 
she  is  to  come,  I  swear  it  shall  not  be  to  your  incon- 
venience. ' ' 

"Well,  well,  I  will  keep  my  room  and  let  her  take 
the  blue  room."  She  felt  thankful  enough  that  Rich- 
ard was  offering  so  little  opposition  to  her  plan.  He 
was  a  person  of  such  very  strong  and  strange  opinions 
that  she  would  not  have  been  astonished  had  he 


8  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

straightway  wired  the  furniture-polisher  negativing 
the  whole  business. 

"Isn't  the  blue  room  rather  impossible?"  he  said. 
"She  may  object  to  rats,  and  black  oak  wainscoting, 
and  funereal  tapestry.  My  room  is  more  recent.  I 
can  easily  turn  out. ' ' 

"Richard,"  his  mother  cried,  admiringly,  "you  are 
the  one  unselfish  man  I  have  met  in  a  life-time.  Your 
room  is  just  the  thing  I  should  have  suggested  had  I 
dared. ' ' 

"Why,"  he  said,  laughing,  "if  I  am  so  unselfish?" 

She  shook  her  head  sagely. 

"You  do  not  mind  giving  up  things,"  she  explained; 
"it  is  views  of  which  you  are  so  tenacious.  I  have 
been  horribly  afraid  you  would  bundle  the  heiress  out 
neck  and  crop,  badly  as  we  are  in  need  of  two  thou- 
sand pounds.  For  I  thought  of  leaving  you  in  ignor- 
ance till  she  arrived. ' ' 

"I  detest  the  whole  business,  I  must  confess,"  he 
said,  hotly.  "Had  I  known  earlier — " 

"Thank  heaven  for  a  wise  and  prudent  mother,  my 
son,"  the  wise  and  prudent  pronounced.  "You  will 
be  able  to  give  the  home  farm  a  chance  this  year. 
And  no  doubt  we  shall  fully  earn  our  'honorarium,'  as 
the  old  man  delicately  terms  it." 

"She  may  be  a  decent  little  person,"  he  suggested, 
though  he  was  far  from  feeling  confident. 

The  arrangement  jarred  him  horribly,  and  it  was 
especially  annoying  to  have  it  sprung  upon  him  as  it 
had  been  at  the  last  moment.  Had  he  known  earlier, 
out  of  the  hundred  and  one  things  which  needed  doing 
a  few  might  have  been  done.  He  winced  as  he  thought 
of  the  heiress'  contemptuous  survey  of  their  poverty. 

Was  there  anything  even  in  the  house  for  dinner — 
anything  beyond  the  routine  fish,  mutton,  and  pud- 
ding? The  wine  in  the  cellar  was  low  enough,  in  all 
conscience.  The  whole  thing  seemed  a  precious  mud- 
dle. Even  at  that  last  moment  he  would  have  got  out 
of  it,  had  not  getting  out  of  it  involved  his  mother's 
banishment  from  all  she  loved  and  valued. 

"I  am  afraid  it  is  rather  like  obtaining  money  under 


"SHE  IS  COMING  TO-DAY."  9 

false  pretenses,"  he  said,  scrupulously.  "Ours  is  not 
at  all  the  kind  of  establishment  the  heiress  will  expect." 

He  went  out  to  look  after  things. 

"I  shall  tell  Ford  to  meet  the  three  o'clock  train 
with  the  brougham,"  he  said,  as  he  went. 

"Will  you  not  drive,  too,  dear?  It  would  only  be 
kind." 

He  shook  his  head. 

"I  don't  care  a  fig  about  being  kind  to  Miss  Pluto," 
he  said,  adding,  on  the  other  side  of  the  door,  "con- 
found her!" 

"I  hope  she  will  be  nice,"  his  mother  meditated. 
She  fell  to  musing.  Presently  she  smiled:  "After  all, 
Richard  might  take  to  her.  And  in  these  days 'every- 
body marries  trade." 


10  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER   II. 
MISS  PLUTO. 

"Pap's  got  his  patent  right,  and  rich  as  all  creation; 

But  where's  the  peace  and  comfort  that  we  all  had  before? 
Le's  go  a-visitin"  back  to  Griggsby's  Station — 
Back  where  we  ust  to  be  so  happy  and  so  pore ! 

"Le's  go  a-visitin'  back  to  Griggsby's  Station — 

Back  where  the  latch-string's  a-hangin'  from  the  door, 
And  ever'  neighbor  'round  the  place  is  dear  as  a  relation — 
Back  where  we  ust  to  be  so  happy  and  so  pore." 

"Goodness,  I'm  all  trembling,"  Miss  Pluto  ejacu- 
lated, as  the  train  slackened  speed.  She  had  traveled 
alone,  her  father  not  having  screwed  up  courage 
enough  to  face  his  daughter's  titled  hostess,  or,  it  may 
be,  having  feared  to  act  prejudicially  in  that  daughter's 
interests. 

"I  suppose  there'll  be  footmen  in  livery,  and  no  end 
of  style,  though  pa  says  he  daresay  he  could  buy  and 
sell  them,"  she  reflected. 

Mr.  Rivers  had  carefully  consulted  the  Peerage,  and 
finding  Lady  Kershaw  of  the  Towers,  Roldermere — 
at  present  living  with  her  second  son,  Major  the  Hon- 
orable Richard  Kershaw — to  be  the  widow  of  the  late 
Baron  Kershaw,  had  been  duly  impressed. 

"If  you  should  happen  on  a  manly  young  chap  to 
your  taste,  Mill,  mind  and  don't  let  him  be  a  duke, ' ' 
Mr.  Rivers  had  stipulated  earnestly.  "I  couldn't 
stand  having  to  say  'your  grace'  to  my  own  girl." 

"All  right,  pa,"  Mill  had  reassured  him,  blushing 
and  laughing.  "I'll  try  and  put  up  with  an  earl." 
Then  she  had  turned  back,  and,  taking  his  dejected 
face  between  her  palms,  had  kissed  him  heartily. 
"Take  care  of  yourself,  dad,"  she  said;  "I'd  far  rather 
be  stopping  here  with  you. ' ' 

As  she  stepped  from  the  first-class  carriage  she  had 


MISS  PLUTO.  II 

occupied,  a  man  in  shabby  livery  came  up  and  touched 
his  hat. 

"Miss  Rivers,  miss?"  he  inquired,  respectfully. 

Miss  Rivers  nodded  a  trifle  superciliously. 

"I'm  from  the  Towers,"  he  said.  "Lady  Kershaw 
sent  the  carriage  to  meet  you." 

Miss  Rivers  stared.  She  ran  her  eye  over  his  well- 
brushed  livery,  brushed  to  threadbareness.  She  tilted 
her  chin. 

"Oh,  well,  you  will  find  my  luggage,  please,  and  my 
maid  is  in  the  train,  and  a  groom  with  my  horses, ' ' 
she  said. 

In  a  moment  it  had  occurred  to  her  that,  though  the 
position  of  these  people — whom  to  remember  as  cousins 
took  her  breath  away — had  been  vouched  for  by  the 
Peerage,  no  guarantee  had  been  given  as  to  the  way 
in  which  she  was  to  be  regarded  by  them.  She  made 
up  her  mind  that  they  were  about  to  treat  her  shab- 
bily. Not  only  had  no  member  of  the  family,  of  what- 
soever this  might  consist,  come  to  welcome  her,  but 
they  had  sent  an  under-servant  to  meet  her — an  under- 
servant  of  so  little  status  that  he  apparently  inherited 
the  coachman's  cast-off  livery.  Her  quick,  practical 
brain  jumped  to  these  conclusions  in  a  moment. 

"I'll  be  even  with  them,  though,"  she  determined. 
"I've  got  father's  check  here  in  my  breast  pocket" 
(Miss  Pluto  wore  the  latest  thing  in  masculine  and 
fashionable  coats),  "and  if  there  is  any  nonsense,  I'll 
go  back  home  to-morrow  morning.  Father's  doing 
the  thing  handsomely,  and  we  ought  to  be  met  fair." 

The  shabby  man,  who,  by  the  way,  was  a  well-man- 
nered man,  broke  in  on  her  animadversions  respect- 
fully. 

"The  brougham  is  over  by  the  other  gate,  miss,"  he 
submitted. 

She  followed  him  with  her  head  in  the  air,  offense 
in  her  heart. 

"There's  Parsons,  my  maid,"  she  said,  pointing  out 
a  modish  person,  who  had  just  alighted  from  another 
carriage.  "I  suppose  there  is  an  omnibus  for  the 
servants  and  the  luggage." 


12  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

The  man  glanced  up  at  her  with  as  much  apprehen- 
sion in  his  features  as  a  well-bred  servant  permits 
himself. 

"No,"  he  said;  "the  luggage  was  to  go  in  by  the 
coach,  and  her  ladyship  thoiight  perhaps  you  wouldn't 
mind  the  maid  coming  in  the  brougham  with  you." 

But  Miss  Pluto  had  no  such  intention.  The  shabby 
brougham,  it's  horse's  head  held  by  a  shabbier  urchin, 
roused  her  ire.  She  was  not  accustomed  to  convey- 
ance so  sorry.  Drive  with  her  maid,  indeed!  She 
would  show  them  she  had  been  used  to  do  things  in 
style.  She  had  no  intention  of  being  either  patron- 
ized or  snubbed.  Those  who  are  on  the  lookout  for 
offense  are  quick  to  find  it.  And  the  heiress  found  it. 

"It  is  possible,  I  suppose,  to  hire  a  cab?"  she  said. 

"Yes,  miss." 

"Then,  Parsons,"  she  instructed  the  modish  person, 
who,  too,  was  eyeing  the  one-horsed  brougham  with- 
out respect,  "take  a  cab,  and  bring  on  the  luggage 
I  shall  require  for  this  evening.  And  find  out  from 
Rogers  how  Queenie  and  Jock  bore  the  journey." 

"Very  well,  miss,"  Parsons  said,  and  rustled  off. 

"We  were  idiots  not  to  come  down  first  and  see  for 
ourselves  what  sort  of  people  these  Kershaws  are," 
Miss  Pluto  reflected.  "And  father  might  have  had 
more  courage  in  asking  questions,  instead  of  trusting 
so  much  to  the  Peerage.  I  daresay  people  in  the 
Peerage  can  be  just  as  detestable  as  people  out  of  it." 
A  reflection  which  showed  that  her  right  estimation  of 
fashionable  life  was  coming  before  her  acquaintance 
with  it. 

The  January  afternoon  was  dull  and  damp.  As 
they  drove  at  Jane's  elderly,  leisurely  pace,  the  lamps 
showed  up  the  dripping  hedges  of  a  dreary  drab,  and 
showers  of  mud  sprayed  up  on  either  side  of  them, 
even  bespattering  the  carriage  windows  when  a  pud- 
dle of  more  than  average  depth  was  invaded. 

"I  wish  I  had  never  come,"  she  meditated.  "It 
doesn't  look  at  all  the  kind  of  place  for  swells." 

They  were  jolting  down  a  quaint  old  high  street, 
with  a  cher  reine  cross  set  up  in  the  market-place.  It 


MISS  PLUTO.  13 

had  been  killing-day,  and  carcasses  and  several  limbs 
made  dismal  revel  in  shop  windows.  In  the  draper's 
linsey-wolseys  of  an  antique  make,  men's  balbriggans, 
and  coarse  corduroys  sounded  a  note  of  hopeless 
unpretension. 

' '  Nobody  would  think  that  there  are  more  titles  in 
this  county  than  in  any  other, ' '  the  heiress,  fresh  from 
the  study  of  her  Peerage,  commented.  But  the  fact 
sustained  her  even  in  the  face  of  appearances. 

The  long  beech  avenue,  stretching  to  the  house,  and 
the  house,  when  it  came  in  view,  showing  dimly  and 
inadequately  lit  out  of  the  January  gloom,  inspirited 
her. 

"There's  a  something  about  it  we  haven't  got,"  she 
decided,  "though  we're  twice  the  size.  I  wish  pa  had 
taken  a  swell's  house  instead  of  building.  Why,  they 
seem  to  have  forgotten  to  light  up!" 

But,  if  they  had  forgotten,  her  arrival  did  not  serve 
for  a  reminder,  for  the  door,  opened  by  a  neat  maid, 
admitted  her  to  an  immense  hall,  which  a  small  fire 
burning  on  a  spacious  hearth,  and  a  couple  of  bracket 
lamps,  did  but  little  to  illuminate.  She  shivered,  and, 
making  her  way  to  the  fire,  held  her  gloved  hands  to 
it.  Two  deerhounds,  lying  on  a  worn  rug,  sniffed  at 
her,  and  rumbled  disaffectedly. 

"It  doesn't  look  as  if  they  see  much  company,"  she 
decided,  following  the  maid  up  a  low,  broad  staircase, 
from  the  walls  whereof  row  on  row  of  pictured  dead 
looked  down  upon  her  disparagingly.  Assuredly  her 
coat  and  toque  showed  out  of  place  among  those  vel- 
vet-doubleted  cavaliers  and  stately  dames.  At  the 
top  of  the  staircase  an  elderly  woman  in  shabby  silk 
held  a  pale  hand  to  her. 

"You  must  be  cold  after  your  journey,"  she  said, 
kindly.  ' '  Come  into  the  drawing-room  for  tea. ' ' 

"Oh,  thank  you,"  Miss  Rivers  returned  a  little 
aggressively.  At  first  she  thought  this  might  be  a  house- 
keeper. But  by  the  time  she  had  swept  a  few  more 
surreptitious  glances  over  the  slender,  shabby  figure, 
she  knew  it  to  be  that  of  Lady  Kershaw. 

In  a  long,  low-ceilinged  room,  faded  and  old-fash- 


14  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

ioned,  a  cosy  corner  was  made  by  a  bright  fire,  a  couple 
of  easy  chairs,  an  orange-shaded  lamp,  and  a  well-fur- 
nished tea-table.  A  tapestry  screen  shut  out  sur- 
rounding shabbiness  and  shadows.  A  superannuated 
poodle,  more  like  a  bundle  of  pink  satin  and  floss  silk 
than  anything  animate,  arose  with  dignity  and  wagged 
a  condescending  tail  at  a  distance,  after  which  it 
yawned,  lay  down,  and  went  to  sleep  again. 

"You  will  like  tea  before  you  go  to  your  room?" 
Lady  Kershaw  suggested. 

"Oh,  thank  you,"  Miss  Rivers  said  again. 

She  glanced  about  her,  dissatisfied.  She  was  horri- 
bly disappointed.  What  a  dreary  dungeon  of  a  draw- 
ing-room! And  was  this  a  sample  of  the  family — this 
quiet,  depressed  woman  in  shabby  silk?  She  had 
expected  smartness,  brightness,  possibly  a  family  of 
young  people.  Major  Kershaw,  the  Peerage  had 
acquainted  her,  was  bordering  upon  forty.  He  might 
be  the  father  of  youths  and  maidens.  She  had  quite 
anticipated  rubs  with  haughty  daughters  of  the  house, 
and  wars,  perhaps,  with  supercilious  sons.  She  had 
pictured  it  all,  looking  foward  with  pleasurable  excite- 
ment to  vanquishing  the  girls  by  virtue  of  a  smart 
tongue,  whereof  she  was  unduly  proud,  to  say  nothing 
of  a  wealth  of  Worth  dresses  wherewith  she  had  sup- 
plied herself.  The  sons  she  expected  to  bring  to  her 
feet  in  tribute  to  her  father's  check-book,  for  the  con- 
ditions of  her  visit  proclaimed  lack  of  means,  and 
being  a  somewhat  assertive  young  person,  she  was 
quite  prepared  to  punish  the  superior  airs  she  took  for 
granted  by  rejecting  unconditionally  such  of  them  as 
should  propose.  Her  heart  was  warm,  and  melted  to 
a  hint  of  friendliness;  but  this  was  a  prospect  alto- 
gether too  good  to  be  expected,  and,  failing  it,  she  had 
braced  herself  to  the  tension  of  hostilities. 

The  outlook  of  the  young  is  always  egoistic,  and  for 
the  most  part  combative.  Picturing  life,  they  come, 
they  see,  they  conquer.  It  is  only  after  sundry  worst- 
ings  they  begin  to  realize  that  the  world's  ogres  do  not 
advance  upon  one  in  open  warfare,  brandishing  clubs 
and  labelled  "Ogre." 


MISS  PLUTO.  15 

Miss  Rivers,  having  abandoned  herself  to  disappoint- 
ment, presently  took  heart  again,  realizing  that  though 
she  had  been  in  the  house  some  minutes  and  had  seen 
no  girls,  this  by  no  means  showed  conclusively  the 
absence  of  girls.  Society  had  been  promised,  and 
nobody  surely  would  come  to  see  this  sad  old  lady. 

Then,  too,  there  was  a  third  tea-cup  on  the  tray. 
One  other  at  least  was  coming.  Unless,  she  reflected 
superciliously,  that  were  meant  for  the  maid. 

"Are  there  no  girls?"  she  questioned,  suddenly,  after 
a  pause.  She  might  as  well  find  out  for  certain, 
instead  of  bothering  her  wits  and  tiring  her  patience 
with  aimless  conjecture.  She  was  a  somewhat  direct 
young  woman. 

Lady  Kershaw  started.  The  question  was  uncon- 
ventionally abrupt.  She,  too,  had  been  considering — 
taking  in  her  visitor  with  quiet  glances.  Her  expres- 
sion was  not  one  of  satisfaction.  She  sighed  as  she 
drank  her  tea.  The  fortunes  of  the  house  were  not 
likely  to  be  revived  by  furniture-polish.  The  heiress 
seemed  a  wholesome,  hearty  sort  of  girl,  but — she 
thought  of  Richard. 

"Are  there — ?"  she  echoed,  inquiringly,  to  Miss 
Pluto's  challenge. 

"Aren't  there  any  girls?  I  expected  you  to  have 
some  daughters,  you  know, ' '  Miss  Pluto  explained. 

Lady  Kershaw  looked  a  little  mystified.  She,  too, 
had  expected  to  have  some  daughters ;  but  that  was 
many  years  ago.  Miss  Rivers  could  not  have  meant 
this.  Then  she  understood.  Of  course ! 

"No,"  she  returned,  "I  have  no  daughters." 

"Nor  sons  either?"  Miss  Pluto  demanded  point 
blank,  and  with  undisguised  blankness. 

Lady  Kershaw  glanced  over  at  her  reservedly.  It 
would  not  be  easy  to  get  on  with  a  person  so  uncom- 
promising. Six  months  were  a  long  time.  After  a 
pause : 

"I  have  two  sons,"  she  admitted,  colorlessly.  "Only 
one  lives  with  me  here." 

"I  suppose  he  is  away  from  home?"  Miss  Pluto  per- 
sisted. 


16  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"No,  he  is  at  home." 

Miss  Pluto  put  her  cup  down  suddenly.  There  was 
an  offended  set  about  her  lips.  She  decided  in  a 
moment  that  he  was  too  fine  to  associate  with  trade. 
Then  she  took  up  her  cup  again,  defiantly,  and  finished 
her  tea  in  mortified  silence.  She  wished  with  all  her 
heart  she  had  not  come.  She  pictured  her  life  here  as 
one  long  succession  of  slights. 

She  remembered  her  experience  at  school.  It  had 
been  a  very  fashionable  school,  recruited  from  the 
daughters  of  the  aristocracy.  The  principal  was  a 
cousin  of  her  mother,  or  she  would  never  have  been 
privileged  to  enter  so  select  a  circle.  The  daughters 
of  the  aristocracy  had  evidenced  their  breeding  by 
making  her  a  butt  for  their  contempt.  "Miss  Bees- 
wax" had  been  their  name  for  her,  and  such  few  amen- 
ities as  were  vouchsafed  her  were  freely  embellished 
with  allusions  to  polish.  The  Lady  Alicia  Dovercourt, 
during  her  first  term,  before  (that  was)  the  source  of 
the  parental  wealth  transpired,  swore  herself  Milli- 
cent's  eternal  friend,  and  had  even  gone  so  far  as  to 
persuade  her  patrician  mother  to  write  to  Mr.  Rivers 
inviting  his  daughter  to  spend  an  ensuing  vacation 
with  the  family  in  Scotland.  But  when  the  thunder- 
bolt fell,  and  the  particular  of  furniture-polish  leaked 
out,  the  Lady  Alicia  dispatched  to  her,  via  the  small- 
est girl  in  the  school,  the  following  note,  written  on 
highly-scented,  crested  paper,  and  folded  into  a  billet- 
doux  : — 

"Lady  Alicia  Dovercourt  presents  her  compliments 
to  Millicent  Rivers,  and  thinks  she  is  a  mean  cat  to 
pretend  she  was  a  lady  when  her  father  makes  furni- 
ture polish.  Lady  Alicia  Dovercourt  requests  Milli- 
cent Rivers  to  scratch  Lady  Alicia's  name  out  of  her 
birthday  book,  so  that  nobody  will  ever  be  able  to 
make  it  out.  And  she  wants  all  her  letters  back  and 
her  photograph,  as  she  is  not  in  the  habit  of  associat- 
ing with  tradespeople.  And  Lady  Alicia  begs  to 
inform  Millicent  Rivers  that,  as  she  has  been  invited, 
she  may  come  to  Creel  Lough  if  she  cares  to  confine 
her  society  to  the  servants'  hall." 


MISS  PLUTO.  17 

On  receipt  of  this  patrician  insult  at  the  blue-blooded 
hands  she  humbly  worshiped,  the  base-born  Beeswax 
packed  her  boxes,  and  betook  herself  home  with  red 
eyes  and  a  bursting  heart.  So  her  fashionable  educa- 
tion and  association  came  to  an  abrupt  and  unsatisfac- 
tory end.  Millicent  tried  no  more  schools ;  but  such 
education  as  she  obtained,  she  obtained  from  a  resi- 
dent governess  and  visiting  masters.  But  that  one 
experience  had  rendered  her  morbidly  sensitive  on  the 
score  of  the  paternal  calling.  She  had  been  the  less 
prepared  for  it  by  the  circumstance  that  her  mother 
having  died  at  her  birth,  she  had  been  her  father's 
spoiled  and  pampered  darling — an  only  child  for  whom 
nothing  and  nobody  in  all  the  world  were  good  enough. 
When  presently  she  "came  out"  in  the  plutocratic 
world  of  her  father's  somewhat  restricted  set,  her  ruf- 
fled composure  was  straightway  soothed.  In  a  society 
made  up  of  persons  who  had  grown  rich  out  of  pickles 
or  corn-flour,  furniture-polish  was  genteel — at  all 
events  it  exalted  its  producer  from  the  sphere  of  the 
kitchen  to  that  of  the  parlor,  and  Millicent,  the  million- 
airess, was  a  young  woman  to  be  cultivated. 

But  now  translated  back  to  the  association  of  her 
schooldays,  it  was  borne  in  upon  her  that  the  slights  of 
those  schooldays  were  possibly  in  store  for  her. 

"I  had  better  have  been  contented  with  father's 
people,"  she  sighed. 

Then  she  flushed  again,  ambitiously  reflecting  that 
should  she  carry  off  the  earl  she  would  be  uplifted  to 
a  rank  wherein  slights  could  not  harm  her.  She  set 
her  teeth.  She  was  a  young  woman  of  character ;  it 
was  worth  carrying  through  even  at  the  risk  of  rubs. 

' '  I  will  go  to  my  room,  Lady  Kershaw,  please, ' '  she 
said.  ' '  I  daresay  my  maid  will  have  come  by  this  time. ' ' 

"Was  she  coming  by  a  later  train?" 

"No."  Miss  Pluto's  resolute  chin  mounted.  "She 
did  not  drive  with  me ;  she  came  on  after  in  a  cab. ' ' 

The  elder  woman  understood.  She  had  risen  intend- 
ing, with  old-fashioned  courtesy,  to  convoy  Miss 
Pluto  to  her  apartment.  She  changed  her  mind.  She 
rang  the  bell. 


1 8  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Will  you  take  Miss  Rivers  to  her  room,"  she 
instructed  the  maid.  "You  are  in  the  front  of  the 
house,  my  dear,"  she  added.  "I  hope  you  will  be 
comfortable. ' ' 

Miss  Rivers  withdrew  with  a  sense  of  abasement. 
Lady  Kershaw  had  not  been  at  all  impressed  in  the 
manner  she  intended  by  her  refusal  to  drive  with  her 
maid. 

When  she  had  gone  her  hostess  sighed. 

"I  fear  she  is  hopelessly  underbred, ' '  she  commented. 


'AT  HOME  THERE'S  ONLY  PA  AND  ME." 


CHAPTER  III. 
"AT  HOME  THERE'S  ONLY  PA  AND  ME." 

"If  I  were  a  girl,  a  true-hearted  girl, 
Just  budding  to  fair  womanhood, 
There's  many  a  thing  I  would  not  do, 
And  numberless  more  that  I  would." 

The  Kershaws  were  waiting  in  the  drawing-room. 
The  gong  had  sounded,  and  dinner  had  been  announced. 
Miss  Rivers  had  not  yet  come  down.  The  major  con- 
sulted his  watch  with  interrogative  brows. 

"Do  not  be  hard  on  her,  Richard,"  his  mother 
smiled.  "She  has  had  a  long  journey." 

The  major  pocketed  his  watch.  He  laughed  good- 
humoredly. 

"Everything  she  does  will  be  wrong,"  he  admitted, 
"till  one  is  used  to  the  notion  of  her." 

"She  seems  a  nice,  bright  girl." 

"Phew!"  he  queried,  "is  she  so  bad  as  that?" 

Ten  minutes  later  the  rustle  of  silk  proclaimed  her 
coming.  They  could  hear  it  arrogantly  sweep  the 
staircase  and  the  lobby.  It  paused,  as  if  in  doubt, 
some  little  distance  from  the  door,  then  recommenced 
and  waxed  obtrusive  as  the  heiress  came  sailing  up 
the  room.  She  was  smiling,  well  pleased.  There  was 
no  trace  of  hufnness  about  her.  Her  last  glance  into 
her  mirror  had  assured  her  she  was  looking  well.  She 
had  chosen  her  very  smartest  frock.  It  would  have 
been  effective  in  a  roomful  of  smart  frocks,  but  in  the 
Kershaw  faded  drawing-room,  beside  Lady  Kershaw's 
simple  dinner-gown  and  the  major's  dress-jacket,  it 
looked  pretentious  and  out  of  place. 

But  the  heiress  perceived  nothing  of  this,  and  showed 
her  white  teeth,  well -satisfied. 

"My  son,  Major  Kershaw,  Miss  Rivers." 

The  major  bowed.     Miss  Rivers  bowed,  and  held 


20  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

out  her  hand.  She  swept  a  shy,  pleased  glance  into 
his  handsome  face. 

She  was  not  a  beauty;  but  she  boasted  a  fine  com- 
plexion, and  frank,  sensitive  eyes.  Her  smile  would 
have  been  engaging  had  it  been  better  restrained.  At 
present  it  was  somewhat  effusive ;  it  suggested  laugh- 
ter rather  than  smiles;  and  a  woman's  laughter  should 
be  rather  in  her  eyes  than  on  her  mouth. 

"How  d'you  do?"  she  queried,  heartily.  "I  hope 
you're  quite  well?" 

Her  brown  eyes  looked  into  his  with  so  much  frank, 
kindly  suggestion,  that  Kershaw  was  almost  con- 
strained into  answering  the  conventionalism  literally, 
she  seemed  so  sincerely  interested. 

"I  trust  you  feel  rested  after  your  journey,"  her 
hostess  said. 

"Oh,  I  feel  fine,"  she  responded.  "It  takes  a  lot  to 
tire  me." 

The  major  offered  his  arm. 

"Shall  we  go  in  to  dinner?"  he  said. 

She  looked  about  her  with  inquiring  eyes. 

"Are  we  all  here?" 

"We  are  all  here." 

"My,  what  a  small  family!  I  hoped  there  might  be 
some  girls.  I'm  the  only  girl  at  home,  and  I  find  it 
precious  dull,  I  tell  you." 

"We  will  do  our  best  to  keep  you  from  being  dull 
with  us, ' '  he  said. 

The  heiress  flushed.  "Oh,  I  never  meant  that," 
she  protested,  confused.  "And  I  expect  I  shan't," 
she  added,  candidly,  "because  I  suppose  you  keep 
plenty  of  company. ' ' 

The  major  seated  her  at  his  right  hand,  and  served 
soup. 

"I  haven't  been  to  many  parties  yet,  although  I'm 
turned  twenty,"  she  whispered  her  hostess  confiden- 
tially, with  an  eye  on  the  butler,  in  whom  she  had  at 
once  recognized  her  friend,  the  coachman.  "Pa 
wanted  to  make  his  fortune  before  he  began  to  spend, 
and  we  haven't  been  long  in  our  new  mansion,  and 
none  of  the  people  have  asked  us,  or  anything.  There 


•   "AT  HOME  THERE'S  ONLY  PA  AND  ME."    21 

are  heaps  of  nice  girls  about,  but  they're  awfully  shy. 
]  know  some  in  the  Sanday  school — I  should  like  to 
teach  Sunday  school  here,  if  I  may;  I'm  awfully  fond 
of  children,  and  we  haven't  any  at  home — but  they 
don't  say  much  but  'good-morning.'  Pa  says  we  ought 
to  get  introductions,  but  none  of  the  Highbury  people 
know  them.  It  must  be  nice  knowing  all  the  people 
round,  like  you  do,  Lady  Kershaw. " 

Lady  Kershaw  smiled  in  spite  of  herself.  The  heir- 
ess' candor  and  good-humor  were  engaging.  She  had 
dropped  the  assumption  of  an  hour  earlier.  Doubt- 
less, that  little  set-back  had  been  salutary.  Major 
Kershaw,  finishing  his  soup,  smiled  under  his  mus- 
tache. He  had  caught  a  portion  of  Miss  Rivers'  whis- 
per. At  the  same  time  he  was  wondering  how  his 
mother  would  survive  six  months  of  the  social  sole- 
cisms whereof  her  guest  was  showing  herself  capable. 
He  was  thinking  that  two  thousand  pounds  might  take 
some  painful  earning. 

"Did  you  find  the  journey  tiresome?"  he  submitted. 

"Oh,  not  at  all,"  she  said.  "There  was  such  a  nice 
old  gentleman  in  the  carriage ;  he  talked  to  me  a  lot. 
He  asked  if  he  might  come  and  see  me  at  home.  I 
think  he  was  a  good  deal  of  a  swell.  He  got  out  at 
the  station  before  yours,  and  the  footman  said  'my 
lord'  to  him.  Such  a  queer,  stout,  old  gentleman.  Do 
you  know  him?" 

The  major's  fine  mustaches  lifted  cynically.  He 
believed  he  knew  him. 

' '  Possibly  Windermere, ' '  he  observed,  with  a  glance 
toward  his  mother. 

Lady  Kershaw  looked  grave. 

"My  dear,"  she  said,  "how  did  you  come  to  talk  to 
him'1" 

The  heiress  colored. 

"I  only  put  up  the  window  for  him  when  he 
coughed,"  she  said.  "He  was  quite  an  old  gentle- 
man, Lady  Kershaw. ' ' 

There  was  a  pause  in  the  conversation.  The  heiress 
looked  distressed. 


22  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"I  don't  talk  to  people  in  trains  generally,"  she  said, 
in  a  low  voice. 

"It  was  very  good  of  you  to  trouble,"  her  hostess 
reassured  her — the  girl  was  so  genuinely  distressed. 

"I  suppose  you  are  a  major  in  the  army,"  she  sug- 
gested, presently. 

Kershaw  admitted  it.     She  looked  impressed. 

"I  know  two  majors  in  the  Volunteers,"  she  said. 
"But  don't  you — ?"  she  broke  off  suddenly.  Her  eye 
traveled  perplexedly  over  her  host's  dress  jacket. 

"The  gold  lace  tarnishes  if  one  wears  it  every  day," 
he  stated,  gravely. 

"I  suppose  uniforms  are  dear,"  she  assented.  She 
glanced  about  her.  She  had  long  since  realized  the 
threadbareness  of  carpet,  and  the  worn  edges  of 
leather.  She  was  sorry  the  Kershaws  were  poor.  She 
had  begun  to  like  them.  "You  wear  it  to  balls?" 

"Some  balls." 

She  looked  pleased.  She  was  thinking  shyly  how 
nice  it  would  be  to  go  to  a  ball  with  the  major  in  his 
gold  lace.  She  made  up  her  mind  that  he  was  the 
handsomest  man  she  had  ever  seen. 

"I  am  afraid  you  will  find  our  evenings  rather  dull," 
her  hostess  apologized,  when  they  had  gone  to  the 
drawing-room.  She  took  up  her  work-basket,  and  her 
fingers  were  soon  busy  on  a  silk  sock. 

Miss  Pluto  came  out  of  a  reverie. 

"Does  he  sing?"  she  queried. 

"Who — my  son?     No." 

"Did  he  ever?" 

The  elder  woman  looked  a  little  mystified.  Then 
comprehension  coming  to  her,  "He  is  younger  than 
he  may  look  to  a  stranger,"  she  observed,  with  dig- 
nity. 

"Oh,  he  looks  much  younger  than  I  expected,"  Mil- 
licent  said,  hurriedly,  "and  he  is  very  handsome." 

His  mother  seemed  mollified. 

"I  see  very , little  of  him  after  dinner,"  she  said. 
"He  is  a  great  reader,  and  just  now  he  is  exceptionally 
busy.  He  is  finishing  a  book  of  poems." 

After  a  somewhat  lengthy  silence :  "Well,  I  can  sing 


"AT  HOME  THERE'S  ONLY  PA  AND  ME."     23 

to  you  if  you  would  like  it,"  the  heiress  volunteered. 
"At  home  I  sing  to  pa." 

"Have  you  no  English  songs?  I  am  fond  of  our 
English  ballads,"  the  elder  woman  suggested,  when 
the  younger  had  bravely  and  conscientiously  accom- 
plished some  painful  athletics  in  vocal  Italian. 

"I  have  a  book  of  old  English  airs,"  the  singer  said, 
a  little  ruefully.  "I  sing  them  to  pa.  Miss  Makin — 
she  was  my  governess — liked  Italian  songs  best. "  She 
laughed.  "She  didn't  understand  a  word  of  them,  but 
she  thought  them  high-toned.  She  wouldn't  let  me 
bring  the  old  English  airs  for  fear  you  might  think 
them  common ;  but  I  can  write  home  for  them  if  you 
would  really  like  them,  Lady  Kershaw." 

"That  is  very  sweet  of  you;  but  I  will  have  my  old 
folio  of  songs  brought  down  to-morrow.  I  think  you 
will  find  them  all  there." 

Miss  Rivers  quitted  the  piano,  and  sat  silent  by  the 
fire,  watching  Lady  Kershaw's  busy  fingers. 

"Are  they  for  him?"  she  inquired,  with  her  eyes  on 
the  scarlet  sock. 

"For  my  son?     Yes." 

"I  can  knit  a  little,"  was  submittted  shyly  after  an- 
other pause. 

"Well,  you  shall  knit  a  pair  like  this  for  your 
brother,"  Lady  Kershaw  said,  kindly. 

"You  see  that's  just  it,  I  haven't  a  brother,"  the 
heiress  said,  with  a  catch  in  her  voice.  Her  eye  sought 
the  door  with  sudden  wistfulness.  "At  home  there's 
only  pa  and  me.  "  She  smoothed  out  a  cascade  of  rich 
lace  which  had  got  slightly  tumbled.  Then,  "I  sup- 
pose I  couldn't  knit  well  enough  to — to  do  the  other?" 
she  said. 

"You  might  knit  some  for  your  father,"  Lady  Ker- 
shaw returned,  hastily.  She  was  very  particular  about 
the  major's  socks.  Moreover  was  ever  mother  free 
from  jealousy? 

"Is  it  better  etiquette  to  say  'father'  than  'pa'?"  the 
girl  inquired,  shyly.  "Pa  likes  me  to  say  'father' 
best.  It's  Miss  Makin  who  would  have  me  say  'pa.' ' 

"You  must  do  what  your  father  wishes,  dear." 


24  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Father  said  perhaps,  Lady  Kershaw,  you  wouldn't 
mind  telling  me  things  like  that  sometimes,  if  it 
wouldn't  be  a  trouble." 

Lady  Kershaw  laid  down  her  knitting.  Her  eyes 
met  the  girl's  eyes  cordially. 

1 '  I  shall  be  glad  to  help  you  in  any  way, "  she  said, 
kindly.  She  seemed  pleased.  The  heiress  was  show- 
ing in  a  more  favorable  light. 


'THE  YOUNG  LADY  GAVE  HER  ORDERS."         25 


CHAPTER   IV. 

"THE  YOUNG  LADY  GAVE  HER  ORDERS." 

"'Tisgold 

Which  buys  admittance." 

"What  the  deuce  are  you  about?"  demanded  Ker- 
shaw. 

The  stables  were  transformed  into  a  carpenter's 
shop.  Outside,  a  horse,  harnessed  to  a  piled  wagon, 
stood  half-asleep,  waking  from  time  to  time  to  clang  a 
heavy-hoofed  impatience  against  the  cobble-stones. 
Inside,  a  carpenter's  bench,  a  rising  mound  of  shav- 
ings, the  crunch  of  a  saw  snarling  its  way  gruffly 
through  a  stout  beam,  under  stress  of  a  strong  hand, 
made  harsh  disorder.  Further  on  a  man  brandishing 
a  mallet  was  assaulting  one  of  the  partitions  of  the 
loose-box. 

"What  the  deuce  are  you  about?"  Kershaw  de- 
manded in  a  higher  key,  for  the  men  were  so  intent 
on  their  task  of  demolition  that  his  previous  protest 
passed  unheard.  The  man,  with  the  mallet  poised  for 
another  onslaught,  held  it  suspended  in  mid-air. 

"Very  true,  maister, "  he  assented,  on  the  top  of  a 
tall  breath.  "We's  a-wirin'  into  it  surely." 

He  swung  the  mallet  down  with  a  force  which 
brought  a  stanchion  and  some  feet  of  planking  heavily 
to  the  ground.  At  this  rate  the  stable  would  shortly 
be  in  ruins.  The  major  caught  him  by  the  shoulder. 

"What  the  devil  are  you  doing?"  he  insisted. 

The  man  looked  up  into  his  face  perplexed. 

"We's  a-knockin'  it  all  down  first,"  he  explained 
above  the  snarl  of  the  saw,  which  the  other  man 
stolidly  wielded. 

"So  I  see,"  Kershaw  retorted.  "And  what  the 
deuce  do  you  mean  by  it?" 

The  hammerer  looked  nonplussed.    He  laid  his  mal- 


26  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

let  down,  and  wiped  perspiring  brows.  Then  he  jerked 
his  thumb  in  the  direction  of  the  sawyer. 

"Ask  "im,"  he  said,  laconically.     "He's  the  boss." 

Kershaw  strode  up,  hands  in  pockets,  and,  confront- 
ing the  irrepressible  sawyer,  repeated  his  question. 

"The  boss"  turned  sullen.  He  hated  to  be  inter- 
rupted before  his  beam  was  through.  It  meant  losing 
what  he  termed  the  "go"  in  his  saw. 

"Repairin'  the  stable  as  per  contract,"  he  blurted. 

"And  who  gave  you  the  contract  to  repair  my 
stable?" 

"The  young  lady,  sir,  the  young  lady  gave  her 
orders  yes'day.  'Twas  to  be  done  immediate,  and  with- 
out delay,  which  we're  doin'." 

He  grasped  his  saw  again. 

"There  is  no  young  lady  here,"  Kershaw  began. 
Then  he  remembered.  An  idea  struck  him.  "What 
young  lady?"  he  inquired. 

"Miss  Rivers,  sir — the  young  lady  as  is  stoppin' 
'ere.  I  seen  her  jest  now.  'Twas  to  be  all  fitted  up 
new  with  polished  pine,  and  chocolate  tiles,  and  brass 
fittin's." 

Kershaw  was  silent  for  one  moment.  In  that 
moment  he  had  swallowed  his  wrath  for  subsequent 
mastication. 

"It  is  as  I  thought,"  he  said,  quietly.  "It  is  all  a 
mistake.  Put  your  things  together  and  take  them 
away  again.  The  stable  will  do  as  it  is.  Here,  my 
man,"  he  called  to  the  hammerer,  "get  some  nails, 
and  repair  the  mischief  you've  done.  Leave  the  place 
as  you  found  it. ' ' 

The  men  looked  agape. 

The  major  laughed.  "It  has  been  a  mistake, "  he 
repeated. 

He  strode  out  with  scintillating  eyes. 

The  heiress  had  been  a  week  at  the  Towers.  During 
that  time  he  had  seen  but  little  of  her.  They  had  met 
at  lunch  and  dinner,  occasionally  at  breakfast.  She 
had  subsided  into  shyness  and  silence,  with  intervals  of 
effusive  cheerfulness.  His  book  at  present  engrossed 
his  attention.  He  had  but  little  time  or  thought  for 


"THE  YOUNG  LADY  GAVE  HER  ORDERS."          27 

her.  Now,  however,  he  went  in  search  of  her.  He 
found  her  soon;  she  was  apparently  on  her  way  to 
overlook  the  operations  in  the  stables.  At  sight  of 
him  her  normally  beaming  countenance  broke  out  in 
smiles.  It  is  improbable  that  he  looked  reassuring, 
yet  by  the  time  she  had  come  up  with  him  her  face 
was  radiant. 

' '  Good-morning, ' '  she  said,  heartily,  then,  in  a  fit  of 
shyness,  would  have  passed  him. 

But  he  stopped  short.  "Good-morning,"  he  re- 
turned. ' '  I  was  looking  for  you. ' ' 

She  glanced  into  his  face.     Her  own  fell. 

"Have  you  given  any  orders  about  the  stables,  Miss 
Rivers?" 

"Why,  you  have  never  seen  them,"  she  exclaimed, 
disappointed.  "Now  that  is  a  nuisance;  I  wanted 
them  finished  before  you  knew  anything  about  it. ' ' 

"Possibly,"  he  said,  dryly;  "but  I  have  sent  the 
men  about  their  business.  I  prefer  the  stables  as  they 
are. ' ' 

She  read  the  anger  in  his  face. 

' '  I  thought  it  would  be  nice  to  have  them  made  like 
ours  at  home,"  she  faltered. 

He  bowed. 

"I  prefer  them  as  they  are." 

"My  horses^-"  she  began. 

"Your  horses  are  very  comfortably  housed,"  he 
insisted  firmly;  "they  have  not  silver  fittings  nor  their 
furniture  polished — " 

The  blood  rushed  over  her  cheeks. 

"Oh,  how  can  you?"  she  flashed  out;  "how  can  you 
taunt  me  with  it?" 

Kershaw  wondered. 

Then,  "Good  heavens!"  he  exclaimed;  "did  you 
think  I  meant  that?" 

But  the  heiress  had  stalked  irefully  off,  her  flushed 
face  in  the  air. 

"Good  heavens,"  he  said  again,  "how  could  the  lit- 
tle idiot  think  I  meant  that?" 

In  the  house  another  surprise  awaited  him.  His 
mother  met  him  at  the  door. 


28  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Richard,"  she  said,  "I  must  speak  with  you."  She 
looked  distressed. 

"It  is  that  confounded  heiress  again,  I  suppose?" 

"One  scarcely  knows  what  to  do.  We  cannot  allow 
her  to  spend  her  money — " 

"You  have  heard  of  the  stables,  then?  Why,  of 
course,  we  cannot ;  I  sent  the  men  immediately  about 
their  business." 

Lady  Kershaw's  face  became  a  question. 

"The  stables?  Why,  what  has  happened  to  the 
stables?" 

He  told  her.  "And  now  what  has  happened  to  the 
house?" 

"Men  have  come  down  from  town  with  stoves, 
lamps,  and  plants  to  stock  the  conservatory.  I  was 
there  with  her  the  morning  after  she  came.  She 
remarked  then  on  the  emptiness  of  the  place,  and 
asked  me,  casually  enough,  did  I  not  like  flowers? 
Richard,  don't  go" — the  major  turned  at  the  door — "I 
cannot  bear  you  to  send  them  away,  they  are  so  beauti- 
ful. There  are  palms,  and  choice  ferns  and  flowering 
plants — " 

Kershaw  experienced  a  pang  of  mortification.  The 
furniture-polisher's  daughter  could  give  his  mother 
these,  the  things  she  coveted,  while  he— 

"We  cannot  be  patronized,"  he  urged.  "My  dear 
mother,  are  we  to  have  our  house  turned  upside  down, 
our  stables  leveled  and  built  up  to  this  young  madam's 
taste,  without  her  taking  the  trouble  even  to  consult 
us?" 

"She  has  a  good  heart,  Dick;  she  means  it  in  all 
kindness,  and  she  has  more  money  than  she  knows 
how  to  spend. ' ' 

"Possibly,"  he  submitted,  dryly;  "but  we  cannot 
put  ourselves  in  the  position  of  receiving  kindnesses 
that  run  into  fifty-pound  notes." 

"Well,  I  should  have  liked  the  flowers,"  his  mother 
sighed. 

He  halted  at  the  door.  Then,  "You  shall  have  the 
flowers,"  he  said,  as  he  went  out. 

Just  before  dinner  the  heiress  came  rustling  her 


"THE  YOUNG  LADY  GAVE  HER  ORDERS."         29 

skirts — she  had  descended  in  the  scale  of  her  evening 
magnificence,  but  she  had  not  a  frock  which  did  not 
rustle  opulently — into  the  conservatory. 

Lady  Kershaw  and  her  son  were  there.  The  heiress 
sought  his  face  with  glances  half  defiant,  half  abashed. 
If  she  had  offended  him,  had  he  not  equally  offended 
her?  and  so  were  they  not  quits?  They  had  not  met 
since  morning,  he  having  lunched  out.  She  glanced 
about  the  well-stocked  place.  The  men  had  done  their 
work  efficiently.  Everything  was  in  good  taste.  The 
stoves  glowed  warm  amid  ferns  and  blossoms,  showing 
rich  and  ornamental  with  their  stained  flames.  Already 
the  air  was  damply  hot. 

' '  It  does  look  rather  nice, ' '  she  said,  pleased. 

Her  eye  sought  Kershaw' s  in  reconciliation. 

"It  is  charming,"  Lady  Kershaw  said;  "my  dear,  I 
am  delighted." 

"  It  is  certainly  an  improvement, "  Kershaw  admitted. 

The  heiress  listened  for  some  further  word.  Her 
ears  disappointed  her.  I  think  he  might  have  said 
one  syllable  of  thanks,  she  reflected  resentfully,  as 
she  took  his  arm  to  go  in  to  dinner. 

Two  mornings  later,  opening  a  letter  beside  her 
plate,  a  receipted  bill  to  the  amount  of  forty  odd 
pounds  for  greenhouse  stock  and  workmen's  time 
appeared.  She  was  abstracted  and  silent  during 
breakfast. 

"May  I  say  a  word  to  you,  Major  Kershaw?"  she 
appealed,  as  he  rose  from  the  table. 

He  led  the  way  into  his  study.  She  ran  upstairs, 
and  came  down  in  a  minute,  purse  in  hand.  She  put 
the  receipted  bill  into  his  hands. 

"You  paid  it?"  she  inquired. 

He  acquiesced. 

She  unclasped  her  purse. 

"It  is  a  mistake,"  she  faltered,  hurriedly.  "They 
are  people  we  employ  at  home.  I  told  them  to  put  it 
on  to  father's  bill."  Then,  after  a  pause,  "Will  you 
please  take  the  money,  Major  Kershaw.  I  do  so  want 
you  to  take  the  money."  She  fluttered  out  some  bank 
notes. 


30  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Put  them  back,"  he  said,  quietly.  "I  cannot  allow 
you  to  pay  expenses  my  mother  and  I  have  incurred. " 

"But  it  is  my  debt;  I  ordered  the  flowers." 

"Neither  can  I  allow  you,"  he  said,  gently,  "to 
order  things  in  our  house. " 

He  bowed  and  left  her. 

The  heiress  gathered  up  her  bank  notes  with  a  crim- 
son face.  She  tapped  a  boot-toe  petulantly  on  the 
floor. 

"It  is  abominable  of  him,"  she  cried,  tears  of  vexa- 
tion springing  to  her  eyes.  "He  couldn't  be  prouder 
if  he  were  a  king,  and  so  poor  as  they  must  be. ' ' 

Then  she  fled  in  panic  to  her  desk  and  dispatched  a 
hurried  countermand  of  an  order  she  had  issued  for 
the  general  re-furbishing  of  the  Kershaw  drawing- 
room. 

"I  might  just  as  well  be  a  pauper  for  all  the  good  I 
shall  get  out  of  my  money  here,  "she  reflected,  wrath  - 
fully ;  "I  have  a  good  mind  to  go  home  again. ' ' 

But  she  remained. 


'A  MATRIMONIAL  AGENCY."  31 


CHAPTER  V. 
"A  MATRIMONIAL  AGENCY." 

"I  wished,  and  I  dreamt  that  a  white  mist  arose 

Where  the  hedgerow  brambles  twist, 
I  wished  that  my  love  were  a  sweet  wild  rose 
And  I  the  silvery  mist. " 

"We  must  give  a  dinner-party,  Dick,  to  introduce 
the  heiress. " 

"I  suppose  we  must.  We  are  under  obligation  to 
do  something  for  our  wage.  " 

"Two  thousand  pounds  are  not  to  be  despised," 
Lady  Kershaw  pronounced,  sturdily. 

'  'Certainly  not.  It  is  the  way  of  earning  them.  We 
have  launched  out  upon  a  species  of  matrimonial 
agency,  you  know.  " 

"Honestly,  if  I  had  thought  that,  I  would  never 
have  consented  to  her  coming.  Her  father,  as  I  told 
you,  made  marriage  only  a  contingency  on  her  visit. 
For  the  rest,  her  manners  have  improved  already,  and 
I  find  her  a  very  -nice  girl.  " 

"How  shall  you  present  her,  mother?  As  a  paying 
guest?" 

"My  son,  don't  be  obtuse.  I  shall  introduce  her  as 
a  cousin.  The  cousinship  is  by  marriage,  and  some 
ninety-nine  degrees  remote,  but  it  will  serve." 

"I  detest  the  whole  business,"  he  said,  impatiently. 

"I  don't,"  his  mother  insisted.  "The  girl  is  a 
pleasant  companion,  and  it  will  be  interesting  to  see 
her  develop.  There  is  sterling  fibre  under  her  rough 
bark.  As  for  responsibility,  I  cannot  feel  that  we 
incur  any.  A  quarter  of  a  million  of  money  is  cre- 
dential enough  for  any  girl." 

He  could  not  deny  it. 

"Whom  do  you  propose  to  ask?" 

"Lord  and  Lady  Windermere,  Sir  Charles  Newby 


32  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

and  his  sister,  Mrs.  Vereker-Brown  and  Nelly,  Tom 
Vaux  and  his  father.     Lord  Waldon. " 

"You  are  playing  fair,  I  see.  Trotting  out  your 
eligibles. ' ' 

"I  am  giving  her  four.     Let  the  best  man  win." 

"Four?     Newby,  Vaux,  Waldon,  and — " 

"And  Richard  Kershaw,  my  dear  major." 

"That  is  very  amiable  of  you,"  he  smiled;  "but,  as 
I  am  living  in  the  same  house,  wouldn't  it  be  taking  a 
mean  advantage  of  the  old  man?  It  wasn't  for  such  a 
son-in-law  he  made  his  shekels." 

"I'm  afraid  you  will  always  be  a  fool,  Richard,"  his 
mother  said,  observing  him.  "She's  a  very  decent 
little  girl,  and,  as  you  say,  you  have  the  advantage — 
even  if  you  had  no  other — of  living  in  the  same  house, 
and  you  might  as  well  whistle  for  the  moon  as  for 
Alicia.  You  must  know  that. ' ' 

He  was  making  for  the  door. 

"When  is  the  affair  to  come  off?"  he  queried,  turn- 
ing back. 

"This  day  fortnight.  I  am  writing  the  invitations 
now. ' ' 

"You  might  as  well  ask  Alicia  and  her  brother 
while  you  are  about  it, ' '  he  suggested,  as  he  went. 

Lady  Kershaw  shook  her  head  above  her  writing- 
table. 

"Remember  we  dine  with  the  Vereker-Browns  this 
evening, ' '  she  called  after  him. 

"What  a  pity  he  hasn't  more  of  me  in  him,"  she 
deplored.  "His  father  never  had  a  grain  of  practi- 
cality. ' ' 

"Millicent,  dear,"  she  said  later,  "would  you  mind 
calling  in  at  the  library  and  telling  the  major  from  me 
not  to  forget  that  we  dine  this  evening  with  the  Ver- 
eker-Browns." 

Millicent  hesitated.  Since  that  affair  of  the  stables, 
the  relations  between  herself  and  Kershaw  had  been 
somewhat  strained. 

It  were  best  not  to  keep  it  up,  she  decided  magnan- 
imously. 

"Very  well,  Lady  Kershaw." 


"A  MATRIMONIAL  AGENCY."  33 

"Oh,  Millicent." 

"Yes,  Lady  Kershaw. " 

The  elder  woman  rose  and  put  her  two  hands  gently 
on  the  younger 's  silk-clad  shoulders. 

"My  dear,"  she  said,  "you  asked  me  to  tell  you  of 
any  little  thing — " 

The  heiress  colored.     She  bent  her  brow. 

"Well,  it  shouldn't  be  'Lady  Kershaw'  quite  so 
often,  dear. ' ' 

She  patted  her  cheek,  smiling. 

"That  is  all.  It  is  only  a  trifle.  And  now  run  and 
dress,  for  I  want  you  to  look  your  best  this  evening. ' ' 

The  heiress  departed  with  a  crimson  face. 

"What  a  lot  of  things  there  are  to  learn  about  high- 
toned  manners,"  she  sighed  ruefully. 

She  knocked  gently  at  the  major's  door. 

"Come  in,"  he  called. 

He  was  sitting  dejectedly  before  the  fire.  He  had 
been  writing,  and  seemed  still  absorbed.  A  reading 
lamp  near  cast  the  pallid  glow  of  its  green  shade  over 
his  face.  Perhaps  it  was  this  which  brought  out 
strong,  strained  lines  on  either  side  his  gold  mustache. 
She  had  seen  him  look  angry.  She  had  not  seen  him 
look  sad.  Her  heart  softened  to  him.  She  hoped  it 
was  not  the  bill  for  the  flowers  which  was  depressing 
him.  Perhaps  he  had  troubles  other  than  money 
troubles. 

"Oh,  Major  Kershaw,"  she  began,  softly. 

He  started  up.  His  features  resumed  their  normal 
expression.  "I  am  sorry — "  he  apologized,  "I  did 
not  see  you. ' ' 

"Lady  Kershaw  asked  me  to  remind  you  that  we 
dine  with  Mrs.  Vereker- Brown  this  evening." 

"Thank  you,"  he  said.     "I  had  not  forgotten." 

She  had  reached  the  door.      She  came  back. 

"Have  you  forgiven  me  about  the  stables?"  she 
inquired.  "You  see  it  isn't  as  if  I  were  quite  a  stran- 
ger. We  are  sort  of  cousins,  father  says. ' ' 

"I  am  very  glad  of  it,"  he  smiled,  "and  I  have  quite 
forgiven  you. ' ' 

She  ran  upstairs,    singing  under   her   breath,   and 


34  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

wondering  all  the  way  how  she  could  ever  have  pic- 
tured him  with  a  family  of  grown-up  sons  and  daugh- 
ters. 

The  heiress  did  not  look  her  best  at  the  Vereker- 
Browns.  To  begin  with,  she  was  badly  dressed.  The 
plainness  of  Lady  Kershaw's  dinner-gowns  had 
spoiled  her  confidence  in  style.  Perhaps  after  all,  in 
this  fashionable  world,  with  which  she  was  renewing 
acquaintance,  it  was  not  good  form — she  had  adopted 
the  shibboleth — to  dress  finely  for  dinner.  At  all 
events  she  would  be  on  the  safe  side.  So  she  decided 
on  a  black  silk  frock.  It  did  not  suit  her.  Black 
jarred  with  the  vivid  reds  and  whites  of  her  complex- 
ion, giving  her  a  somewhat  bizarre  look.  Moreover, 
the  gown  was  cut  with  only  a  little  square  at  the 
throat,  and  the  well-modeled,  roundly-covered  shoul- 
ders, which  were  a  strong  point  with  her,  were  so 
deducted  from  the  sum  of  her  attractions.  Then  she 
had  caused  her  hair  to  be  dressed  after  a  fashion  which 
was  classic  and  in  vogue,  but  did  not  become  her. 
And  she  was  shy  arid  silent,  and  her  face  flushed  with 
excitement.  This  was  her  entry  to  the  new  world. 

Lady  Kershaw  scanned  her  critically  as  she  came 
slowly  down  the  great  staircase,  putting  on  her  gloves. 
Not  a  shade  of  the  disappointment  in  her  mind  was 
permitted  on  her  face.  Good  gracious,  she  was  think- 
ing, why  didn't  the  girl  wear  her  eau-de-nil  frock  with 
chiffon  trimmings?  That  became  her  admirably.  And 
what  in  the  name  of  vexation  had  come  to  her  hair? 

The  paying  guest  was  not  so  mortifying  a  circum- 
stance if  her  manners  and  appearance  were  but  cred- 
itable. But  any  obtrusion  of  her  class  were  calculated 
to  make  one  ridiculous. 

Even  the  major  was  disappointed,  and  Millicent  had 
no  great  portion  of  his  thoughts.  He  did  not  formu- 
late, but  wondered  vaguely  how  she  had  managed  to 
dispose  of  such  charm  as  she  possessed.  Ordinarily  she 
was  buoyant  and  pretty.  To-night  she  was  depressed 
and  plain. 

He  almost  hoped  Vaux  would  not  show  up  at  the 
Vereker-Browns.  He  had  begun  to  get  it  somewhat 


"A  MATRIMONIAL  AGENCY."  35 

on  his  conscience  that  the  furniture-polisher  should 
not  spend  his  two  thousand  pounds  to  110  purpose.  He 
had  a  species  of  irritating  sense  that  so  he  and  his 
mother  would  be  obtaining  money  under  false  pre- 
tenses. That  which  Rivers  intended  was  evident 
enough.  And  the  girl  was  a  nice  girl,  and  should  have 
her  chance.  He  had  not  the  remotest  intention  of 
furthering  such  an  affair  by  word  or  deed,  but  Vaux 
had  occurred  to  him  as  a  possible  parti  for  this  opulent 
little  cousin  of  his.  So  both  might  be  benefited.  Vaux 
was  open-handed  and  poor.  It  was  true  he  had  no 
title  beyond  the  somewhat  unsubstantial  one  of  "Hon- 
orable." But — and  the  major  smiled — poor  little 
Pluto  in  these  days  of  heiresses,  American  and  other- 
wise, must  needs  content  herself,  for  though  she  were 
pretty  and  pleasant,  she  could  not  be  considered  a 
beauty.  And  after  all  a  quarter  of  a  million  was  only 
so-so,  especially  when  leavened  with  furniture-polish. 

Vaux  was  wont  to  vaunt  himself  in  his  candid  fash- 
ion at  a  valuation  of  a  million. 

' '  I  think  he  would  content  himself  with  a  quarter, ' ' 
the  major  reflected,  "and  the  little  girl  would  get  a 
very  decent  chap  for  husband."  Then  he  was  dis- 
gusted with  himself  for  match-making,  and  dismissed 
the  subject  straightway. 

As  they  drove,  he  noticed  the  splendid  sparkle  of 
her  diamond  necklet — the  only  ornament  she  permit- 
ted herself  that  evening.  He  sighed.  He  was  think- 
ing of  a  dainty,  aristocratic  throat  he  wotted  of,  which 
nature  seemed  to  have  fashioned  for  such  diamonds, 
but  fortune  had  gainsaid.  Poor  Lady  Alicia  had  only 
a  string  of  pearls  which  had  belonged  to  a  great-grand- 
mother. The  larger  portion  of  the  family  jewels  had 
found  their  way  into  the  greedy  clutches  of  a  notorious 
burlesque  actress.  Not  in  the  form,  be  it  said,  of  the 
family  jewels.  That  would  ill  have  accorded  with  his 
lordship  Windermere's  notions  of  honor.  Her  lady- 
ship had  been  constrained  to  wrathfully  convert  them 
into  paste  and  cash,  whereof  she  retained  the  paste  and 
he  the  cash — till  the  burlesque  actress  got  scent  of  it. 

What  sort  of  justice  was  there  in  things,  Kershaw 


36  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

cogitated  irritably,  which  decked  little  Pluto  with 
superlative  diamonds,  while  Alicia,  the  high-born,  the 
peerless —  He  put  the  thought  away,  Do  not  let 
him  be  mean  enough  to  grudge  the  girl  her  jewels — 
even  for  that  other's  sake.  She  was  generous  enough 
in  all  conscience  with  her  possessions.  Moreover, 
Alicia  had  so  much  beside. 

He  leaned  forward,  and  replaced  the  rug  which  had 
slipped  down  over  her  knees. 

"We  have  a  long  way  to  drive,"  he  said;  "you 
must  not  get  cold. ' ' 

"Oh,  thank  you,"  she  cried,  in  a  flutter,  and  too 
gratefully.  She  had  not  caught  yet  the  manner  of  a 
class  which  takes  as  a  right  and  sparing  of  thanks  the 
ministrations  of  its  masculinity. 

With  that  new  dawning  in  her  mind  of  the  age  of 
forty  as  compatible  with  so  much  more  of  youth  than 
she  had  ever  conceived,  Kershaw  had  all  at  once 
become  less  distantly  exalted.  She  had  been  watching 
his  face  from  her  corner  of  shadow. 

"He  is  like  King  Arthur  in  my  birthday  Tennyson, " 
she  was  thinking.  "And  that  lovely  mustache  of  his 
isn't  gray  at  all;  it  is  only  pale  gold.  Yes,  he  would 
be  just  like  King  Arthur  if  he  were  in  armor. ' ' 

So  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  she  was  fluttered, 
when  he  extended  a  royal  knightly  hand,  and  wrapped 
the  rug  about  her. 

After  she  had  thanked  him,  she  remained  a  long 
while  silent.  The  light  from  a  passing  carriage  showed 
him  her  face — a  sober,  awed  face  above  the  wicked 
gleam  of  diamonds. 

" Poor  little  cousin, "  he  mused.  "She  is  certainly 
not  looking  her  best  to-night.  But  perhaps  Vaux  will 
not  be  of  the  party. ' '  After  which  he  fell  to  musing 
of  another  who,  he  hoped  to  heaven,  would  be. 

She  was,  and  looked  inimitable.  Her  flower-like 
face,  poised  on  its  white  stem  of  supple  throat,  white 
as  the  string  of  pearls  about  it,  seemed  to  him  like 
some  lovely  oasis  in  human  desert.  And,  like  an 
oasis,  it  mocked  his  thirst.  It  was  the  covetable,  the 
delectable,  the  unattainable.  He  was*  by  nature  a 


"A  MATRIMONIAL  AGENCY."  37 

dreamer  and  a  poet.  Active  service  had  taken  some- 
thing of  this  out  of  him.  But  there  was  enough  of 
original  nature  left  to  him  to  render  Alicia  an  idyll  in 
his  throbbing  brain. 

As  he  entered  the  drawing-room,  in  the  rear  of  his 
women-kind,  her  glance  met  his  across  the  space.  Her 
lids  lowered  for  a  moment  on  her  lovely  eyes,  her  lips 
unfolded  a  fraction  over  her  perfect  teeth.  Had  she 
been  less  highly  bred  she  would  have  blushed.  He 
ground  his  teeth,  interpreting.  She  cared  for  him! 
He  was  confident  she  cared  for  him  so  far  as  the  love 
of  a  mere  man  were  possible  to  her  dainty  disdainful- 
ness. But  he  knew  his  poverty  to  be  a  barrier  more 
inexorable  between  them  than  even  personal  loathing 
on  her  part  would  have  been.  That  was  the  inevitable 
of  her  training.  Then  his  jaws  squared.  He  would 
win  her  yet !  She  was  but  a  woman  with  all  her  white 
perfections — he  paused  a  moment  to  thank  ,some  power 
.responsible  for  that  she  was  but  a  woman — and  a 
woman  was  to  be  won. 

"You  look  ill,  major,"  Mrs.  Vereker-Brown  said,  as 
they  shook  hands. 

"Nevertheless  I  am  flourishing,"  he  laughed. 

"I  say,  Richard,"  Vaux  adjured  him,  "present  me 
to  the  heiress.  Can't  say  she's  a  very  gilded-lookin' 
nugget,  though,  from  what  they  say  of  the  old  man, 
she  ought  to  be.  No  offense,  old  chap;  heard  all 
about  her  from  our  lawyer,  By  Jove!  how  bloomin' 
you  look.  Never  saw  you  look  so  bloomin'  before." 

It  was  in  the  interval  between  greeting  his  hostess 
and  meeting  Vaux  that  he  had  decided  Alicia  was  but 
a  woman. 


38  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER   VI. 
THE  LADY  ALICIA  DOVERCOURT. 

"In  his  heart 

She  reigned,  with  all  the  beauties  that  she  had, 
And  all  the  virtues  that  he  took 
For  granted.' 

By  some  fortuitous  concomitance  of  happy  accidents 
or  by  hospitable  design  he  took  her  in  to  dinner.  She 
proved  her  human  actuality  by  eating  and  drinking 
like  other  mere  mortals.  But  few  other  mortals  boasted 
such  slender,  perfect  hands  wherewith  to  grasp  the 
commonplace  of  knife  and  fork,  nor  such  a  cupid 
mouth  to  condescend  as  gateway  for  the  crudities  of 
turtle  and  truffle.  She  even  drank  champagne,  though, 
to  Kershaw's  adoring  gaze,  it  took  on  the  character  of 
nectar  as  it  touched  her  lips.  For  he  was  very  much 
in  love — dangerously  in  love — as  only  a  man  with  the 
rare  combination  of  powerful  build  and  poetic  temper- 
ament can  be.  When  his  passion  was  not  blinding 
him  his  poetic  temperament  was;  and  for  blinding 
capability,  passion,  though  it  be  competent  enough  in 
all  conscience,  is  many  times  inferior  to  poetic  tem- 
perament. The  temperament  plays  on  higher  strings, 
and  its  vibrations  are  so  much  the  subtler  and  the 
more  distracting 

The  Lady  Alicia  did  not  talk  brilliantly  on  this  occa- 
sion ;  but  to  him  she  appeared  to  drop  pearls  and  other 
wonders  from  her  lovely  mouth. 

During  this  dinner,  which  was  an  ecstasy  to  her 
companion  (had  ever  woman  such  a  skin,  and  shoulders 
so  like  snowballs?)  he  compared  her  loveliness  with 
Rosamund's — Rosamund,  so  fair  and  tender  that  you 
could  see  her  rosy  fancies  playing  through  her  trans- 
lucent flesh — she  said  nothing  more  than  mortal  might 
say. 


THE  LADY  ALICIA  DOVERCOURT.  39 

Was  he  going  to  the  hunt  ball?  She  had  been  to  a 
pantomime  with  two  small  nephews.  What  queer 
creatures  boys  were !  The  clown  was  so  funny !  She 
supposed  he  was  too  grave  to  care  for  clowns.  She 
felt  positively  young  again  when  the  transformation 
scene  came  on.  It  was  delicious  to  feel  young  again. 
He  had  not  been  hunting  lately.  She  supposed  he 
was  burying  himself  in  some  book  or  another.  How 
clever  and  industrious  it  was  of  people  to  write  books ! 
She  was  absolutely  afraid  of  him  now  he  was  becoming 
such  a  noted  person.  Lord  Salisbury  had  praised  his 
"Idylls  of  Thought"  to  her  the.  other  day.  She  was 
quite  proud  of  knowing  the  author. 

To  all  of  which  Kershaw  listened  thirstily  with  eye 
and  ear.  Had  ever  woman  such  a  charm  of  speech 
and  voice?  He  could  see  the  dainty  veinings  of  her 
milk-white  arms,  the  azure  vessels  curving  in  the 
ivory  skin,  to  branch  delicate  over  the  back  of  her 
slim  wrist,  and  lose  themselves  finally  in  the  slender 
thrilling  fingers. 

There  was  one  full  tracery  darkly  blue  in  a  snowball 
shoulder — Alicia  wore  a  frock  which  did  not  hide  her 
shoulders — a  tracery  it  thrilled  him  with  an  exquisite 
pain  to  note,  the  transparent  skin  seemed  to  his  ten- 
derness so  frail  a  barrier  to  guard  her  perfect  life. 

For  the  major  was  badly  in  love.  A  look  from  her 
limpid  eyes  set  him  aflame;  a  touch  of  her  fingers 
choked  him  with  a  swirl  of  passion.  He  was  a  poet, 
with  the  intenseness  of  a  poet;  a  soldier,  with  a  sol- 
dier's virility.  His  poetry  deified  her,  his  manhood 
craved  her  with  all  the  hunger  of  the  gulf  his  evil  for- 
tune clove  between  them. 

"Which  is  the  heiress?"  she  inquired,  with  a  quick 
sweep  of  his  profile  out  of  her  bright  eyes. 

Kershaw  glanced  down  the  table,  Millicent  had  not 
once  visited  his  mind  since  a  certain  white  arm  had 
slipped  its  soft,  maddening  pressure  through  his. 

He  met  the  heiress'  eyes.  How  sober  and  dissatis- 
fied she  looked.  Yet  Vaux  at  her  side — Mrs.  Vereker- 
Brown  had  a  talent  for  mating  her  guests — was  taking 
pains  to  make  himself  agreeable. 


40  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"She  is  sitting  between  Vaux  and  Morton;  she 
wears  black  silk." 

Alicia's  lovely  profile  canted  itself  daintily  about. 
His  thought  clung  passionately  down  the  sweet,  fine 
curve  of  her  throat. 

"The  pretty  girl  with  the  diamonds?" 

"Do  you  call  her  pretty?" 

The  limpid  eyes  caressed  him. 

"Do  you  not?" 

"She  does  not  look  her  best  to-night.  " 

She  laughed.  The  idolatry  of  his  glance,  which 
showed  him  incapable  of  worshiping  any  god  but  her, 
gave  her  a  pleasant  thrill. 

"I  think  I  was  at  school  with  her,"  she  said,  with 
an  engaging  condescension. 

"Were  you  at  school?" 

One  might  have  supposed  this  piece  of  perfection  to 
have  dropped  in  its  perfection  from  the  skies. 

"Why,  of  course.    Am  I  so  shockingly  ignorant?" 

What  raillery  in  her  glancing  eyes ! 

"She  has  not  mentioned  it.  " 

How  obtuse  of  the  girl  not  to  have  chronicled  so 
eminent  a  fact! 

"Perhaps  she  would  not  remember  me,"  Beauty 
submitted  demurely. 

He  laughed  incredulous.  Could  the  grass-blade  for- 
get the  sun?  He  looked  to  see  the  grass-blade  lift  its 
grateful  head  to  the  regard  of  its  luminary.  But  the 
heiress'  face  was  turned  away.  She  was  listening,  and 
now  smiling,  to  some  sally  of  Vatix. 

"Shall  you  be  at  Waldon's  on  the  twentieth?"  he 
questioned. 

"Shall  you?" 

"Answer  my  question  first.  " 

"I  shall." 

"Then,  I  shall. " 

Her  laugh  rippled.  What  Goth  was  it  who  slandered 
woman's  voice  by  likening  it  to  water? — cold,  common 
water ! 

"You  are  becoming  a  mere  butterfly.     You  used  to 


THE  LADY  ALICIA  DOVERCOURT.  41 

be  a  bookworm.  One  could  not  tempt  you  from  your 
study. ' ' 

"One  has,  "  he  said  gravely. 

"I  must  look  out  for  her.  " 

"Do." 

He  turned  his  lean  face  to  her.  It  was  fierce  with 
hunger. 

"In  my  eyes,  "  he  said  whimsically. 

Again  her  laughter  rippled.  She  swept  him  with 
alluring  glances.  She  was  thoroughly  enjoying  her- 
self. To  whip  up  with  cool,  practiced  skill  the  hot 
torrent  of  a  man's  passion  she  found  to  be  the  pret- 
tiest sport  possible.  And  it  were  easy  enough  to  trip 
aside  when  the  angry  current  waxed  importunately 
wroth. 

"I  am  so  vain,"  she  said,  softly,  "I  might  only  see 
myself. " 

He  was  peeling  an  orange  for  her.  She  saw  his 
fingers  tremble.  She  remembered  a  story  she  had 
heard  of  a  certain  young  officer  who,  with  a  handful  of 
men,  had  led  a  forlorn  hope  and  saved  a  fortress,  while 
all  the  while  an  arm  hung  broken  by  his  side.  To 
that  day  he  carried  in  his  face  the  story  of  those  hours ; 
the  grim  set  of  his  jaws  and  the  stare  of  his  eyes,  as 
he  had  faced  death,  came  back  at  times  and  gripped 
his  features.  She  remembered  with  a  sudden  exulta- 
tion to  have  heard  from  one  present,  that  in  those 
hours  his  hand  and  voice  had  been  as  calm  and 
unperturbed  as  though  death  had  been  a  thousand 
leagues  away. 

And  he  trembled  to  peel  her  orange !  He  shaped  a 
golden  lily  from  it,  and  presented  it. 

' ' I  have  made  a  mess  of  it, ' '  he  said ;  "I  am  out  of 
practice. " 

"Perhaps  it  is  over-ripe, "  she  cooed. 

He  thanked  heaven  for  making  women  innocently 
blind,  and  so  saving  a  man's  pride. 

"Lord  Waldon  is  arranging  some  tableaux,  you 
know, ' '  she  said,  faring  upon  her  lily-orange. 

"So  I  hear." 

' '  I  am  taking  part. ' ' 


42  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

He  looked  up  quickly.  He  did  not  understand  a 
certain  inflection  in  her  voice.  There  was  nothing  to 
be  made  of  her  beautiful,  impassive  face. 

"What  part?" 

Lord  Wai  don's  tableaux  had  a  certain  reputation. 
He  was  angry  that  she  should  have  been  drawn  into 
them. 

She  understood  the  question. 

"Please,  I  should  like  some  grapes,"  she  sued. 

He  selected  some. 

"What  part  do  you  take?"  he  persisted. 

"One  of  those  heathen  goddess  people, "  she  said, 
smoothly. 

"Diana?" 

She  shook  her  head  She  set  a  purple  grape  between 
her  coral  lips,  and  smiled  upon  him. 

"Juno?" 

"Guess  again. " 

"Not  Venus?"  he  said,  brusquely 

She  eyed  him  through  her  half-closed  lids,  and 
shook  her  head  a  second  time. 

He  looked  relieved.     He  had  heard  a  rumor. 

"Tell  me,  "he  laughed. 

"Aphro — Aphro — Was  there  a  person  called  Aphro- 
dite?" she  questioned,  ingenuously. 

"That  is  Venus,  "  he  said  gruffly. 

"Is  it?  Well,  Aphrodite  sounds  better.  Venus  was 
rather  improper,  wasn't  she?" 

He  did  not  answer.  He  was  old-fashioned  enough 
not  to  care  for  the  subject  on  his  lady's  lips.  He 
cursed  the  poverty  which  prohibited  him  from  res- 
cuing her  from  her  surroundings  and  the  Windermere 
set.  His  muse  gave  her  to  him  as  a  young  lily  in  mire. 
Her  people  should  have  protected  her.  How  could  a 
girl  know? 

"Are  you  shocked?"  she  queried,  softly. 

"Your  people  should  not  allow  you,"  he  said, 
gravely. 

She  yawned.  "Sermons  make  me  sleepy.  Thank 
goodness  there  is  the  signal,  and  just  as  Parson  Ker- 
shaw  has  given  out  the  text. " 


THE  LADY  ALICIA  DOVERCOURT.  43 

She  swept  a  sparkling  mischievous  glance  up  at  him, 
and  turned  her  white  shoulder  in  going. 

The  heiress,  following,  saw  it.  She  remembered  at 
school  how  a  younger  edition  of  that  glance  had  sub- 
jugated the  singing  master,  and  led  later,  in  a  manner 
which  was  not  explained,  to  his  summary  dismissal. 

"I  would  give  everything  I  have  for  such  a  face," 
she  reflected,  wistfully.  Then  she  paused  to  wonder 
at  herself.  She  had  never  before  concerned  herself 
about  her  looks 


"Is  that  you,  Miss  Rivers?"  Alicia  greeted  her  later. 
' '  I  suppose  I  may  not  say  Millicent  after  so  long ;  but 
we  were  friends  then. ' ' 

' '  Our  friendship  came  to  a  pitiful  ending, ' '  Millicent 
said,  dryly. 

Alicia's  delicate  color  deepened.  It  was  very  mid- 
dle-class of  the  heiress  to  refer  to  it. 

"Do  not  let  us  remember  a  silly  school-girl  tiff.  We 
are  neighbors ;  I  should  like  to  be  friends.  I  shall  call 
on  you — dear. ' ' 

' '  I  did  not  want  to  quarrel, ' '  Milly  said.  She  remem- 
bered her  suffering  at  the  time.  She  had  idolized  her 
lovely  friend.  For  many  a  night  after  she  had  sobbed 
herself  to  sleep  upon  the  memory  of  her  betrayal. 
The  Lady  Alicia,  budding  into  charming  womanhood, 
had  been  the  darling  of  the  school,  and  the  furniture - 
polisher's  daughter  had  been  stricken  by  a  two-fold 
sense  of  her  plebian  worthlessness  and  overwhelming 
gratitude  when  she  had  found  herself  singled  out  for 
beauty's  friendship.  She  had  showered  all  the  prod- 
uce of  her  ample  pocket-money  on  her,  loading  her 
with  presents.  Even  at  that  moment  Alicia  wore  a 
bracelet  of  her  giving. 

"I  shall  call  next  week,"  Alicia  smiled,  shaking  her 
fan  with  airy  grace  as  she  moved  to  a  corner  screened 
with  palms. 

The  men  were  just  coming  in  from  the  dining-room. 
It  did  not  take  the  major  long  to  find  her.  Millicent 
watched  him  across  the  room.  Through  the  digitated 


44  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

spaces  of  palm-fronds  she  saw  Alicia  glance  up,  smil- 
ing, as  he  approached.  She  drew  her  silken  skirts 
aside  in  gracious  invitation. 

"What  a  dull  specimen  the  nugget  is,"  Vaux,  pur- 
suing his  heiress-hunt,  reflected.  "Perhaps  she  has 
indigestion;  that  ice-pudding  was  deucedly  cold.  I 
say,  Miss  Rivers,  they're  goin'  it,  ain't  they?"  he 
remarked,  nodding  in  the  direction  of  the  palms. 

"Are  they — are  they  engaged?" 

"That's  a  good  'un ;  it's  a  providence  you  didn't  pop 
that  conundrum  to  the  Countess  Windermere.  Like 
to  have  seen  her  face  if  you  had. ' ' 

"They  are  not  engaged,  then?" 

"My  dear  Miss  Rivers,  Richard  Kershaw  hasn't 
more  than  fifteen  hundred  a  year,  and  mortgages,  and 
heaven  knows  what  all  to  discharge.  Alicia's  danglin' 
for  a  prince — I  may  say  has  got  him  on  the  hook. 
Nobody  knows  whether  it's  her  fault  or  his  he  hasn't 
been  landed  high  and  dry  this  three  months." 

"But  she  seems  to — to  like  Major  Kershaw." 

"Oh,  Alicia  likes  lots  of  us;  it's  a  way  she  has. 
Kershaw' s  hard  hit,  and  he  don't  see  it.  Thinks  her 
a  kind  of  seraphim  with  wings,  and  all  that  kind  of 
thing  Ah,  now!  there  swoops  the  mater  down  on 
'em.  Thought  she  wouldn't  stand  it  long.  Look  at 
Kershaw's  face ;  he'd  like  to  punch  the  old  lady's  head. 
Well  done,  old  lady !  see  how  she  smiles ;  bet  you  ten 
pound  she's  sayin'  dear  Alicia's  chest's  so  delicate,  and 
there's  a  sort  of  oriental  miasma  and  that  risin'  from 
the  palms.  She's  a  smart  'un,  is  the  Windermere.  If 
what  they  say  is  true,  she'll  box  Alicia's  pretty  ears 
for  her  when  she  gets  her  home,  and  dear  Alicia  \vill 
shy  her  lovely  slipper  at  her  for  her  pains.  Oh,  they're 
a  smart  lot,  the  Dovercourts,  I  tell  you,  and  the  old 
woman's  furious  Alicia  hasn't  landed  the  prince  long 
ago ;  he's  only  a  German,  but  I  should  like  you  to  tell 
me  any  prince  who  isn't.  I  never  heard  a  prince's 
name  but  I  mutter,  'Made  in  Germany.'  Are  you 
goin'  to  Waldon's  tableaux  on  the  twentieth?" 

"I  believe  so." 

"Ludwig  will  be  there.     They  say  Alicia  is  safe  to 


THE  LADY  ALICIA  DOVERCOURT.  45 

land  him  that  night;  she  is  one  of  the  tableaux. 
Fetchin'  get-up  she's  got,  too — chiefly  tights!" 

He  laughed.  The  heiress'  horrified  countenance 
and  the  ingenuous  indignation  with  which  she  turned 
her  back  on  him,  diverted  him. 

"Afraid  you're  awfully  shocked;  but  nobody  minds 
the  Dovercourts,  everybody's  used  to  'em  these  twenty 
years." 

But  Millicent  refused  to  talk  about  it.  She  set 
watching  Alicia  with  admiring  eyes.  What  a  shame 
it  was  to  speak  of  her  in  such  a  way ! 

"I  say,  don't  be  cross  with  me  about  it,"  Vaux 
protested.  "I  did  all  I  could  to  make  her  wear  a 
cloak.  She  said  heathen  goddesses  never  wore  cloaks. 
I  said,  'Then  why  be  a  heathen  goddess?'  She  said, 
'Don't  be  absurd!'  And  when  a  woman  says,  'Don't 
be  absurd, '  a  chap  has  no  defense. ' ' 

Millicent  refusing  to  be  mollified,  Vaux  presently 
left  her. 

"I  don't  know  how  I  should  ever  put  up  with  her 
temper, ' '  he  reflected,  moodily.  '  'She's  precious  huffy. 
I  could  live  in  town  of  course.  But  then,  supplies 
might  stop.  The  polisher  'ud  very  likely  fix  things 
tight.  I  call  it  a  beastly  bore  bein'  flung  on  the  world 
with  anything  under  five  thou.  a  year.  One  had  better 
have  remained  a  monkey.  At  least  there  wouldn't  be 
a  coat  and  trouser  bill  to  pay,  and  I  suppose  it 
wouldn't  take  long  gettin'  used  to  a  tail!" 


'  'You  were  at  school  with  Lady  Alicia,  she  tells  me, 
Miss  Rivers,"  Kershaw  observed,  as  they  drove  home. 

"Yes." 

"Was  she — was  she  pretty  then?" 

"She  was  always  beautiful,"  Millicent  said,  gen- 
erously. 

He  threw  her  a  grateful  glance. 

1  'And  was  she  a  shameless  flirt  then?' '  Lady  Kershaw 
added,  dryly. 

"Mother!"  he  remonstrated. 

"They  say  she  made  eyes  at  the  doctor  who  vaccin- 


46  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

ated  her,  and  I  honestly  believe  it,  Richard.  She  is 
perfectly  incorrigible. ' ' 

"Brought  up  in  that  house,  every  allowance  should 
be  made  for  her. ' ' 

"I  was  speaking  of  effects,  not  causes." 

"She  said  she  would  call,  Lady  Kershaw.  She  and 
I  were  friends  at  school. ' ' 

Kershaw 's  face  brightened.  His  mother's  darkened. 
The  girl  had  no  right  to  amuse  herself  at  his  expense, 
as  she  was  doing. 

Millicent  sat  late  that  night  reading.  "I  never 
knew  poetry  was  so  interesting, ' '  she  confided  softly 
to  herself.  She  turned  from  the  Idylls  to  the  frontis- 
piece picture  of  King  Arthur.  She  felt  shy  to  meet  its 
eyes — it  was  so  like.  And  they  are  just  the  things  he 
would  have  done,  she  reflected.  She  set  down  the 
book  with  a  sigh  and  began  to  unfasten  her  black 
frock.  She  caught  sight  of  herself  in  a  mirror.  She 
saw  how  ill  the  fashion  of  her  hair  became  her.  She 
remained  staring  at  her  reflection.  Then,  at  the 
recollection  of  a  dainty  white-robed  figure  and  a 
perfect  face,  she  broke  into  tears. 

'  'It  isn't  fair  for  a  girl  to  be  born  plain, "  she  cried, 
miserably. 


THE  MEET.  47 


CHAPTER  VII. 
THE  MEET. 

I  wish  that  women  were  all  angels — but  then,  what  would  be- 
come of  the  men-folks,  poor  lonely  creatures ! 

"What  a  lovely  morning  for  the  meet,  "  the  heiress 
exclaimed. 

Kershaw  glanced  through  'the  mullioned  windows  of 
the  breakfast-room,  daintily  curtained  with  frost-lace. 

"If  it  thaws,"  he  said. 

"The  sun  is  so  bright  it  is  certain  to  thaw.  " 

"I  hope  it  may  for  your  sake,"  he  said,  smiling  at 
her  eagerness. 

She  looked  up  quickly.      "Are  you  not  going?" 

He  shook  his  head.  "You  would  not  have  me  ride 
poor  Janey.  " 

'  'But  there 's  Jock, ' '  she  protested.  '  'Major  Kershaw, 
please  ride  Jock.  He  needs  exercise  badly.  " 

"It  is  very  kind  of  you,"  he  said,  "but  I  really 
ought  to  be  at  my  proofs.  " 

"If  you  will  accept  Jock — "  she  began,  breathlessly. 

His  eyes  met  hers.  She  stopped  short  in  crimsoning 
confusion.  She  had  been  on  the  brink  of  disturbing 
a  relation  of  frank  friendliness  which  was  springing  up 
between  them. 

"If  you  will  always  use  Jock  as  if  he  were  yours," 
she  corrected  herself,  "it  will  be  a  kindness  to  him. 
And  then,  "  she  added  lightly,  "perhaps  you  will  some- 
times ride  with  me. " 

The  major  looked  at  the  translucent,  wind-swept 
sky.  There  was  scarcely  a  cloud  to  be  seen,  and 
already  the  thaw  was  evidenced  by  the  gather  and 
drip  of  moisture  beading  on  the  trees.  He  weakened. 
He  yielded.  Perhaps  he  remembered  that  Alicia 
would  be  there.  Perhaps  Millicent's  kindness  touched 
him. 


48  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"You  are  a  great  deal  too  good, "  he  said.  "I  shall 
be  delighted. " 

"And  you  too,  major,  "  Mrs.  Vereker-Brown  greeted 
him  when  she  called  for  Millicent. 

"Miss  Rivers  has  kindly  lent  me  a  mount,  "  he  said. 

"Why,  you  can  always  have  a  mount.  You  know 
that  well  enough.  Charles  is  only  too  pleased.  Not 
such  a  creature  as  that,  perhaps.  What  a  beauty 
he  is!" 

Your  cousin  looks  well  in  the  saddle,  "  she  remarked 
presently.  ' '  I  did  not  know  she  was  so  pretty. ' ' 

He  directed  his  looks  upon  the  blue-habited,  finely 
modeled  figure  in  advance. 

"I  suppose  she  is  pretty, "  he  returned,  catching  the 
outline  of  a  vivid  cheek  and  the  gleam  of  a  full  eye. 

Mrs.  Vereker-Brown  glanced  at  him  severely.  She 
shared  his  mother's  opinion  of  him  as  a  fool  so  far  as 
his  financial  interests  were  concerned. 

Witness  the  fact  of  his  devotion  to  Alicia,  with  whom 
he  had  as  little  chance  of  success  as  he  had  prospect  of 
marrying  a  young  Princess  of  Wales.  Moreover, 
Alicia  had  not  a  penny  wherewith  to  bless  herself,  and 
the  Kershaw  estate  needed  at  the  very  least  some 
twenty  thousand  pounds  to  free  it  from  debt.  This 
new-found  heiress  cousin  seemed  so  very  obvious  a 
solution  of  the  difficulty.  There  had  been  other 
heiresses  to  cast  encouraging  eyes  upon  the  handsome 
major,  but  the  major  was  a  bookworm,  and  but  little 
given  to  society,  and  these  less  favored  damsels  had 
not  the  entree  of  his  study  as  one  living  in  his  house 
might  have. 

Mrs.  Vereker-Brown  had  welcomed  Millicent  as  a 
species  of  fairy  god-mother,  and  had  secretly  applauded 
Lady  Kershaw  for  her  discretion,  for  Mrs.  Vereker- 
Brown  was  fond  of  Richard,  and  wanted  to  see  him 
comfortably  settled.  He  needed  a  practical,  cheerful 
little  wife,  with  fortune  enough  to  dispose  of  his 
financial  difficulties,  and  brains  enough  to  keep  his 
poetic  wits  in  bounds. 

"Indeed  she  is  pretty,"  she  asserted,  energetically, 


THE  MEET.  49 

4 '  and  you  will  find  a  good  many  people  think  so.  Tom 
Vaux,  the  other  night " 

"Did  he  admire  her?" 

"Indeed  he  did. " 

Mrs.  Vereker-Brown  vouched  for  more  than  had 
been.  The  major  was  evidently  interested.  Perhaps 
he  might  be  piqued.  She  glanced  inquisitively  at  him 
while  she  spoke.  She  saw  his  face  relax  into  a  smile 
of  sympathy,  half-humorous,  half-serious,  a  smile 
characteristic  of  him. 

"He's  a  very  good  fellow,  "  he  asserted  cheerfully; 
"and  she  would  make  him  a  capital  wife. " 

' '  She  would  make  anybody  a  capital  wife, ' '  Mrs. 
Vereker-Brown  retorted,  angrily. 

She  pushed  forward  and  joined  Millicent. 

"It  is  strange  how  even  the  kindest  women  object 
to  hear  another  woman  praised,"  the  major  mused, 
trotting  behind  them.  Then  he  fell  to  thinking  of  one 
woman  who  was  an  exception  to  every  rule  attaching  to 
the  foibles  of  her  sex. 

His  views  were  confirmed  when  he  presently  came 
up  with  her  riding  beside  her  brother.  She  wore  a 
dark  green  habit,  with  beaver  hat.  A  goddess — a  syl- 
van goddess — he  reflected,  marking  the  golden  rings 
into  which  the  breeze  had  blown  the  hair  about  her 
brows,  and  noting  her  exquisite  bloom. 

"May  I  ride  with  you?"  he  begged. 

"I  am  promised,"  she  said,  on  the  top  of  a  little 
sigh,  adding,  with  an  upward  sweep  of  her  lids:  "I 
did  not  know  you  were  coming. ' ' 

But,  to  Kershaw's  exultation,  Prince  Ludwig,  who 
was  to  have  ridden  with  her,  did  not  show  up. 

' '  The  fates  are  good  to  me  this  morning, ' '  he  sub- 
mitted, as,  at  her  invitation,  he  took  his  place  beside 
her.  "And  I,  "  she  smiled. 

"And  you,»"  he  assented. 

"Shall  I  tell  you  a  secret?" 

"Tell  me  anything.  " 

"Well,  bend  your  head  a  little.  I  ought  properly  to 
whisper  it.  I  am  so  glad  he  did  not  come — Richard.  " 

It  was  the  first  time  she  had  called  him  by  name. 
4 


50  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

The  world  before  him  swam  in  a  mist.  He  answered 
her  with  intoxicated  eyes. 

But  alas!  for  the  major  and  the  major's  hopes. 
They  were  just  starting  when  a  voice  behind  him 
faltered : 

"Oh,  Major  Kershaw!" 

Alicia  was  at  that  moment  carrying  on  an  animated 
discussion  with  her  brother — a  discussion  which,  to 
judge  by  his  bent  brows,  was  anything  but  amicable 
on  his  part. 

Kershaw  turned  a  beaming  face. 

"Can  I  do  anything  for  you,  Miss  Rivers?  Where 
is  Vaux?" 

"I  left  him  for  a  moment.  I  wanted  to  ask  you 
something. " 

He  noticed  that  her  face  was  pale.     He  waited. 

"I  only  wanted  to  ask  if  I  must  take  the  fences  as  I 
did  at  the  riding-school, ' '  she  said,  hurriedly,  and  with 
abasement. 

He  looked  serious. 

"Have  you  not  hunted?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

He  looked  more  serious  still. 

"Tell  Vaux  you  are  nervous.  Ask  him  to  take  you 
round. " 

She  half  nodded. 

"They  are  just  off,"  she  said.  Then  she  repeated 
breathlessly:  "Am  I  to  take  them  in  the  same  way?" 

"I  tell  you  you  must  not  take  them.  There  are 
some  nasty  fences  in  this  morning's  run.  Vaux  will 
take  you  round.  You  shall  come  out  with  me  and 
practice  before  next  meet. ' ' 

4 '  Thank  you ;  but  you  have  not  answered  my  ques- 
tion," she  insisted,  obstinately.  "Tell  Vaux,"  he 
maintained. 

She  lifted  her  eyes  resolutely. 

"I  am  ashamed,"  she  said.  She  added  under  her 
breath :  "And  I  am  more  ashamed  of  being  ashamed. " 

She  turned  and  rode  away. 

For  half  a  minute  Kershaw  sat  in  silence.  Alicia 
and  her  brother  were  still  disputing  hotly.  He  wiped 


THE  MEET.  51 

a  moisture  from  his  brow.  It  was,  as  it  were,  the  dew 
of  setting  hopes.  His  face  was  sombre.  Then  he 
broke  in  suddenly  on  the  fraternal  altercation.  He 
lifted  his  cap.  "Lady  Alicia,"  he  said,  "will  you 
excuse  me?  May  I  find  somebody  to  escort  you?  I 
am  horribly  sorry  I  must  forego  that  pleasure  myself. 
I  must  ride  with  Miss  Rivers. ' ' 

She  glanced  round  with  a  sudden  haughty  tension  of 
her  lip. 

He  repeated  his  question. 

She  saw  the  bitter  disappointment  of  his  face.  He 
had  overheard  some  remark  of  Tudor 's. 

"No,  I  will  keep  you  to  your  word, "  she  insisted, 
with  a  smile  and  a  defiant  glance  in  the  direction  of 
her  brother. 

Kershaw  was  sore  pressed. 

4  4  My  word  has  gone  out  of  my  control, ' '  he  said. 
t4I  ought  to  have  remembered.  Miss  Rivers  is  under 
my  care." 

She  bent  forward  and  drew  a  finger  through  a  ripple 
of  her  chestnut's  mane.  Then  she  said  smoothly: 

4 'Oh,  go  by  all  means."  She  broke  into  a  sudden 
little  ring  of  laughter.  4  4  How  very  convenient  of  you, ' ' 
she  cried,  "to  make  room  for  Prince  Ludwig,  who  just 
arrives,  and  who  otherwise  had  lost  his  chance.  By, 
by,  major;  take  care  of  Millicent. " 

Ludwig  rode  up  jauntily,  and  with  an  easy  matter- 
of-course  air,  took  the  place  Kershaw  vacated.  She 
touched  her  hat  gaily  to  him  with  her  riding-crop. 

41 A  moment  earlier,  prince,  and  you  would  have 
been  too  late,"  she  laughed. 

Kershaw  bowed,  and  rode  away  white-hot.  He 
cursed  his  luck,  he  cursed  the  prince,  and,  if  the  truth 
must  be  told,  I  fear  he  cursed  the  heiress. 

"My  place,  Vaux,"  he  said  grimly,  as  he  came  up 
with  the  couple. 

Vaux  looked  blue;  he  was  finding  Millicent  to  his 
taste  this  morning;  she  had  a  fine  color  by  daylight, 
and  talked  crisply. 

44 Oh,  I  say,  Kershaw,"  he  submitted  ruefully,  "I 
spoke  first.  Miss  Rivers  has  promised  me." 


52  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Miss  Rivers  promised  me  before,"  Kershaw  as- 
serted. 

"Is  it  true?     Must  I  turn  out?" 

"I  am  afraid  you  must,"  she  said  gently,  glancing 
with  shy  pleasure  at  the  major.  Then  she  generously 
regretted  her  good  fortune  at  sight  of  his  gloomy  face. 
It  did  not  occur  to  her  that  that  he  had  done,  he  had 
done  for  her  sake.  She  imagined  he  had  made  way 
against  his  will  for  Ludwig.  How  could  Alicia?  Such 
a  sallow,  coarse-looking  man  as  Ludwig  was ! 

She  did  her  best  to  cheer  him ;  she  could  not  help 
being  in  high  spirits. 

"You  may  take  this  wall  safely,"  he  said  presently, 
"you  cannot  go  wrong  with  that." 

Queenie  rose  to  it  lightly.  Millicent  came  down  on 
the  other  side  with  a  catch  in  her  breath  and  sparkling 
eyes. 

"Delicious!"  she  panted. 

He  relaxed  a  little. 

"I  believe  I  need  not  have  come  with  you  after  all." 

Slowly  a  look  of  horror  froze  on  her  face.  » 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  it  was  for  me  you  came?"  she 
demanded,  when  she  had  recovered  her  breath. 

He  admitted  it  with  as  good  grace  as  possible. 

Ludwig  and  his  dainty  comrade  were  galloping  ahead 
of  them ;  she  poised  light  as  a  bird,  and  turning  her 
gay,  fair  profile  up  to  him : 

"You  left  her  for  me  because  I — oh,  Major  Kershaw, 
it  was  never — never  that." 

Again  he  assented  with  as  much  show  of  heartiness 
as  he  could  muster. 

"I  thought  it  was  because  of  Prince  Ludwig.  Oh, 
I  would  never  have  consented  had  I  known  the  truth, ' ' 
she  cried,  distressed. 

"We  are  thoroughly  enjoying  ourselves,"  he  urged. 

She  drew  rein,  and  faced  round  on  him. 

"Will  you  believe  that  rather  than  have  done  it,  I 
would  have — "  she  caught  her  breath — "I  would  rather 
have  broken  my  neck, ' '  she  concluded,  impetuously. 

"Why,  never  mind,"  he  insisted,  "we  are  having  a 
splendid  run.  This  way — this  way  round,  I  will  get 


THE  MEET.  53 

down  and  open  the  gate,  there's  a  beast  of  a  fence 
there.  Miss  Rivers,  I  say,  Miss  Rivers — good  Lord, 
has  the  girl  gone  mad?" 

She  had  set  her  spur  to  Queenie's  flank,  and  was 
following  pell-mell  in  the  wake  of  Ludwig  and  Alicia. 
He  was  too  late  to  stop  her.  Queenie  had  seen  the 
other  horses  rise,  and  she,  like  her  mistress,  had  lost 
her  head. 

"Good  God!  she'll  break  her  neck  while  she  talks 
about  it,"  Kershaw  cried;  "never  taken  anything  but 
a  riding-school  fence." 

He  galloped  headlong  after  her.  There  was  a  ditch 
on  the  other  side.  It  was  a  fence  which  even  practiced 
riders  were  not  ashamed  to  shirk — a  broken  wall,  with 
a  barbed-wire  fencing  topping  it,  and  on  the  other  side 
an  ugly  ditch  and  quickly  rising  bank.  The  girl  would 
break  her  neck  to  a  surety !  He  bounded  after  her,  his 
eyes  strained  tensely.  Then,  as  Queenie  flung  up  her 
head,  rose,  and  swept  lightly  over,  brushing  the  top 
with  her  fore-hoofs,  to  vanish  straightway  on  the  other 
side,  he  swerved  about  and  took  it  higher  up.  He 
felt  momentarily  sick  at  the  thought  of  thundering 
down  on  that  which  might  have  happened. 

But  the  mare,  with  Millicent  lightly  riding  her,  was 
cantering  safely  up  the  slope. 

She  drew  rein  at  the  top,  and,  turning,  faced  him. 

"Good  heavens!"  he  gasped,  "how  could  you?" 

She  broke  into  a  little  sobbing  laugh. 

'  'You  will  never  again  need  to  ride  with  me  against 
your  will ! ' '  she  panted. 


54  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
"MEN  ARE  FOOLS." 

"You  are  just  a  porcelain  trifle, 

Belle  Marquise; 
Just  a  thing  of  puffs  and  patches, 
Made  for  madrigals  and  catches, 
Not  for  heart-wounds,  but  for  scratches, 

O  Marquise." 

"Lady  Alicia  Dovercourt. " 

She  floated  into  the  Kershaw  shabby  drawing-room 
with  all  her  undulant  soft  grace,  a  vision  of  bird's 
wings  and  fur  and  purple  velvet.  The  malicious  said 
her  dressmaker  robed  her  gratuitously.  She  so  well 
became  her  gowns  that  the  makers  of  anything  she 
wore  were  abundantly  repaid  in  advertisement. 
Whether  this  was  so  or  not  I  cannot  say.  I  only  know 
that  the  malicious  sometimes  speak  the  truth. 

Millicent  was  making  shirts  for  the  poor.  She  was 
making  them  exceedingly  ill.  She  had  as  little  talent 
for  plain  sewing  as  she  had  inclination  for  it.  She 
could  embroider  flowers  and  leaves  in  crewel,  she 
could  do  macrame  work,  and  was  skillful  with  a  variety 
of  chenille  lace,  which  when  finished  was  capable  of 
being  put  to  no  use,  human  or  divine.  But  the  prin- 
cipal of  that  most  fashionable  school,  wherein  she  had 
spent  five  miserable  months,  had  discarded  plain 
sewing  as  a  merely  menial  achievement,  and  one 
unsuited  to  the  aristocratic  fingers  of  her  young  ladies. 
Indeed,  she  would  almost  have  regarded  as  ineligible 
to  the  select  circle  revolving  round  her  in  a  scholastic 
orbit,  any  young  woman  to  whom  plain  sewing  might 
be  an  infinitesimal  and  remote  necessity.  "I  do  not 
pretend  to  train  girls  to  do  without  maids,"  she  has 
been  heard  to  say,  loftily. 

So  Millicent  was  making  the  shirts  but  indifferently 
well ;  however,  as  they  were  intended  merely  for  the 


"MEN  ARE  FOOLS."  55 

poor,  who  are  thankful  enough  to  get  shirts  of  any 
description,  this  was  a  detail  of  no  significance. 

She  was  sufficiently  aware  of  the  usages  of  polite 
society  to  have  been  ashamed  of  the  shirts,  had  they 
been  destined  for  the*wearing  of  some  member  of  her 
family.  In  that  case  she  would  have  been  overwhelmed 
with  mortification  at  being  detected  in  their  manu- 
facture. But  the  shirts  were  merely  for  those  other- 
wise shirtless,  whom  we  have  always  with  us,  and 
whose  nakedness  under  the  auspices  of  a  charitable 
society,  Lady  Kershaw  had  undertaken  to  cover  to  the 
extent  of  four  garments  yearly. 

Therefore  our  heroine  arose  from  the  midst  of  her 
heap  of  striped  cotton  with  no  sense  of  shame. 

"It  is  nice  of  you  to  come,"  she  smiled. 

Perhaps  she  would  have  been  a  shade  less  cordial  had 
she  not  known  that  the  major  was  not  expected  home 
till  dinner-time.  Some  situations  are  hard  in  which 
for  the  most  generous  to  bear  herself  generously. 
And  Alicia's  dainty  fairness  was  so  engagingly  irre- 
sistible in  its  setting  of  full-toned  purple. 

"I  hope  we  are  going  to  be  friends,"  Alicia  sub- 
mitted prettily,  laying  down  her  muff,  which  was 
opulent  with  lace  and  scented  violets,  and  warming  her 
hands  at  the  fire. 

' '  I  hope  so,  I  am  sure, ' '  Millicent  returned  sincerely. 

They  talked  conventionalities  for  some  minutes — of 
the  hunt,  of  coming  festivities,  of  the  dinner  the  other 
evening.  Alicia  was  gracious,  Millicent  admiring. 

"I  hope  we  shall  be  friends,"  Alicia  said  again,  sip- 
ping her  tea.  "Do  you  know,  Milly — I  may  call  you 
Milly  as  I  used  to — and  please  call  me  Alicia — Milly, 
my  dear,  I  have  scarcely  a  woman  friend  in  the  world. 
Can  you  tell  me  why?" 

Milly  probed  her  mind  for  the  cause  of  her  charming 
confidant's  offense. 

"You  are  so  pretty,"  she  said  candidly,  and  with  a 
little  sigh.  "It  is  difficult  for  plain  women  to  be  really 
fond  of  pretty  ones. ' ' 

"But,  my  dear,  it  isn't  fair.  One  cannot  help  being 
decent  looking.  I  did  not  make  myself,"  Alicia 


56  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

objected,  with  a  rueful  expression  on  her  lovely  face, 
as  though  her  failing  on  the  side  of  looks  were  the 
occasion  of  sincerest  regret  to  her. 

"Women  don't  stop  to  think  about  that  when  you 
take  their  sweethearts  from  them. ' ' 

Alicia  swept  her  eyes  up  sharply  to  her  friend's 
dejected  countenance.  "It  doesn't  follow  that  if  a 
man  didn't  admire  me,  he  would  admire  them,"  she 
said  demurely,  with  some  confusion  in  her  tenses  and 
personal  pronouns. 

Millicent  colored.  She  met  the  other's  look.  But 
there  was  no  intention  to  be  fathomed  in  the  limpid 
eyes. 

"No,  it  does  not  follow.  But  they  can't  help  admir- 
ing you,  Alicia.  Men  are  so  taken  by  beauty." 

"Men  are  fools,  Mill.  And  it's  just  as  much  bonnet 
and  clothes,  as  it  is  looks,  they  are  in  love  with.  Now, 
I  have  an  excellent  dressmaker — by-the-by,  if  you  like 
I  will  give  you  her  name — she  is  admirable.  And  it  is 
chiefly  clothes  with  men.  Send  two  women  into  a 
roomful  of  men,  a  plain  one  well-turned  out,  and  a 
pretty  one  badly-turned  out.  There  won't  be  a  man 
there  who  will  have  the  faintest  suspicion  that  the 
well-gowned  one  is  not  the  pretty  one.  Some  more 
tea,  dear,  and  plenty  of  cream  and  sugar." 

'  'It's  easy  for  you  to  talk, ' '  the  heiress  said ;  '  'you 
are  beautiful  and  well-dressed,  too. ' ' 

"And  you,  my  dear,  are  rich." 

Was  there  a  shade  of  envy  in  the  lovely  eyes? 

'  'You  also  must  be  well  off. ' ' 

The  beauty  shook  her  head.  "I  haven't  a  penny  to 
bless  myself  with. ' ' 

"Well,  it  would  be  pitiful  to  be  loved  for  one's 
money. ' ' 

Alicia  laughed.  "Why,  you  haven't  learned  any- 
thing since  you  were  at  school.  You  might  be  sixteen 
again.  Now,  shall  I  tell  you  a  secret?  Well,  if  only 
I  had  half  your  money,  Mill,  I'd  no  more  think  of 
marrying  than  I'd  think  of  becoming  a  nun.  Men 
are  fools — sickening,  wearisome  fools,"  she  ended 
roughly.  "If  you  only  knew  how  dead-tired  I  am  of 


"MEN  ARE  FOOLS."  57 

them.  — But  so  long  as  they  have  everything  in  their 
hands  one 'has  to  be  civil  to  them.  They  think  I  see 
nothing  because  my  eyes  are  blue.  They  think  my 
white  skin  holds  all  sorts  of  softnesses.  They  desert 
the  estimable  women  who  worship  them  for  fine 
fellows,  to  get  a  smile  from  me,  who,  when  I  don't 
find  them  fools,  am  generally  bored  to  death  by  them. 
I  haven't  a  notion  what  is  meant  by  love.  I  like  being 
kissed" — she  laughed  with  her  eyes  on  Millicent — 
"it's  pleasant  enough  and  it's  good  for  the  complexion. 
But  one  man  is  about  the  same  as  another,  so  long  as 
he  is  well-groomed  and  doesn't  smoke  too  much.  I'm 
a  sort  of  social  cannibal,  Mill.  I  want  scalps — scalps 
by  the  score  to  feed  my  vanity.  And, ' '  she  laughed  a 
short,  sharp  laugh,  "and  the  fools  think  I  am  fond  of 
them." 

"You  must  pretend  or  they  would  not  think  it," 
Millicent  said,  indignantly.  She  experienced  a  sense 
of  nausea.  She  took  up  a  shirt,  and  sewed  upon  it. 
Its  coarse  harshness  felt  wholesome  to  her  fingers. 
"You  are  only  pretending, "  she  protested  savagely, 
"and  it  is  ridiculous  to  pretend  to  be  bad.  Goodness 
knows,  one  has  faults  enough  without  pretending. ' ' 

"That  is  all  one  gets  for  virtue.  I've  been  exer- 
cising the  rare  quality  of  candor,  and  you  only  round 
on  me  for  my  pains.  But  it  is  a  relief  to  get  some  of 
it  out.  I  tell  you,  I'm  often  tempted  when  the  hus- 
bands and  sweethearts  of  fond,  domestic  women,  buzz 
round  me  with  their  silly  compliments — Mill,  the 
temptation  is  almost  irresistible  to  flick  them  in  the 
face  and  say,  'You  fool,  you  fool,  do  you  think  I  care 
twopence  whether  your  necktie  becomes  you,  or  that 
your  tweeds  are  new,  or  any  other  wretched  fact  you 
try  to  impress  on  me.  Go  back  to  the  woman  idiot 
enough  to  think  you  fine.  While  you  dangle  after  me, 
you're  losing  the  only  person  in  the  world  ridiculous 
enough  to  admire  you. '  ' ' 

1  'Nobody,  to  see  your  face,  would  believe  you  were 
thinking  such  abominable  things, ' '  Millicent  broke  out 
angrily. 

"My  dear,  if  there  is  one  thing  I  love,  it  is  my  face. 


58  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

I  know  better  than  to  spoil  it  by  my  feelings.  Besides, 
I  don't  deny  the  fascination  of  being-  worshiped.  I 
only  reserve  my  right  to  despise  the  worshiper  when 
he  expects  me  to  reciprocate  the  feeling.  Men  don 't 
like  to  be  told  the  truth.  I  have  blurted  it  out  once 
or  twice  when  my  feelings  got  the  better  of  me.  I 
assure  you  they  were  not  grateful.  Always  remember 
that  if  you  hear  things  about  me,  remember  there  are 
at  least  three  men  in  the  world  to  whom  I  have  told 
the  unflattering  truth.  It  will  help  you  to  deny  things 
with  a  clearer  conscience.  " 

"Alicia!" 

"I  must  have  my  snarl  out.  When  I  was  a  child 
mother  always  said,  'Alicia,  smile,  you  look  so  ugly 
with  that  nasty  droop  at  the  corners  of  your  mouth. ' 
Perhaps  my  canary  had  died.  Or,  'Alicia,  I  will 
not  have  you  frown ;  your  eyebrows  are  like  a  great 
blacksmith 's, '  when  some  cad  had  been  stoning  my  dog. 
So  I  got  into  the  way  of  bottling  my  snarl,  but  some- 
times it  effervesces  and  froths  over.  And  now  you 
have  had  the  benefit  of  it.  Perhaps  1  have  told  you 
more  about  myself  these  last  few  minutes  than  any- 
body else  knows.  Perhaps,  by  doing  so,  I  have 
prevented  you  from  being  my  friend.  I  hope  not, 
Mill ;  I  want  a  friend — a  woman,  of  course.  No  man 
is  ever  a  friend  to  a  woman.  He  is  always  calculating 
what  he  is  going  to  get  out  of  it.  Men  are  never 
disinterested,  my  dear,  in  their  dealings  with  women.  " 

"I  don't  believe  it,  I  can't  believe  it,"  Millicent 
protested  hotly.  "There  are  good  men,  good  hus- 
bands, good  fathers,  and  good  friends,  Alicia,  whatevejx 
you  may  say. ' ' 

Alicia  laughed  a  scornful  laugh.  "My  dear  Mill," 
she  said,  cynically,  "you  won't  mind  me  saying  it,  I  am 
sure ;  I  am  in  a  candid  mood.  You  will  not  often  find 
me  err  in  that  direction.  But  to-day  I  must  speak  out. 
Well,  dear,  you  are  pretty;  but  you  are  not  pretty 
enough  to  know  men.  The  good  fathers  and  good 
husbands  can  withstand  you — they  can 't  withstand  me. 
Ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  of  them  I  can  twist 
about  my  little  finger.  Men  are  mere  wax  in  the 


"MEN  ARE  FOOLS."  59 

hands  of  an  attractive  woman.  If  a  man  won't  fling 
conscience,  honor,  and  domestic  felicity  to  the  winds 
for  a  woman,  it  is  only  because  the  woman  isn't 
attractive  enough. ' ' 

"You  think  a  good  deal  of  yourself,  "  Millicent  urged 
dryly. 

Beauty  tilted  her  dainty  face  self -confidently. 

"Oh,  I  have  seen  life,"  she  cried.  "I  am  not 
twenty-five,  but  I  have  seen  life.  They  call  us  weak, 
but  we  have  strategy,  and  level  heads,  and  persistence. 
Somebody  has  said,  a  chain  is  not  stronger  than  its 
weakest  link.  I  say  a  man  is  not  stronger  than  the 
little  finger  a  pretty  woman  chooses  to  twirl  him 
round." 

"You  talk  like  a  very  bad  girl,"  the  heiress  said, 
stitching  manfully  at  her  coarse  shirts.  "How  can 
you  know  such  things?" 

Beauty  looked  up  wickedly  from  among  the  lace 
and  violets  of  the  muff  she  lifted  to  a  charming  cheek. 

"Perhaps  it  is  hereditary,"  she  submitted,  demurely. 
"Father  is  no  saint,  as  you  have  very  likely  heard." 

"Let  us  talk  of  something  else,"  Millicent  cried, 
disgusted.  "I  hear  you  are  to  be  in  the  tableaux  next 
week." 

' '  I  am  afraid  we  shall  not  be  getting  very  far  away 
from  an  improper  subject,"  the  other  laughed.  "At 
any  rate  you  are  leaving  me  still  on  the  carpet." 
After  a  pause:  "Yes,  I  am  to  take  the  part  of 
Aphrodite." 

"It  isn't  really  true  that  you  wear  tights,  is  it?" 

"Why,  I  could  not  wear  stockings  and  boots,  dear. 
It  would  be  an  ana — ana — that  thing  that  means  the 
wrong  period.  You  know  the  word.  We  learned  it 
at  school." 

Few  persons  could  make  such  charming  capital  of 
ignorance. 

"But  you  are  never  going  to  wear  short  skirts?" 

"Why,  of  course  not.  I  am  a  classic  person,  robed 
in  classic  draperies.  I  wear  at  least  forty  yards  of 
accordion-pleated  silk." 

"Isn't  accordion-pleating  an  anachonism?"  Millicent 


60  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

smiled.  She  was  relieved  to  find  that  Vaux  had  only 
been  playing  on  her  credulity. 

"They  say  clothes  at  all  are,"  Alicia  said.  "I  sup- 
pose there  is  no  one  but  you  at  home?"  she  observed 
presently,  looking  round  with  a  little  yawn. 

"No;  Lady  Kershaw  and  the  major  are  in  town." 

"How  do  you  like  him?" 

"I  like  him.     He  is  such  a  gentleman." 

"Oh,  well,  most  men  know  how  to  bow  and  say 
'how  d'ye  do,'  don't  they?"  Beauty  commented 
languidly.  She  began  to  wonder  about  the  time. 

Millicent  looked  up  at  her  with  a  somewhat  troubled 
face. 

"Most  men  are  not  like  Major  Kershaw,  I  think," 
she  said,  slowly. 

"I  suppose  he  is  rather  nice  about  a  house — domes- 
ticated, and  that  sort  of  thing." 

"You  speak  of  him  as  if  he  were  a  cat"  (indignantly.) 

"Not  at  all.  I'm  rather  fond  of  him  myself.  He's 
so  innocent  and  fresh!" 

"He  has  traveled  everywhere,  and  has  fought 
battles,  and  writes  books.  He  is  not  a  mere  school- 
boy." 

"No;  he  believes  in  women.  Schoolboys  don't. 
Father  says  the  classics  take  it  out  of  them." 

"Well,  why  shouldn't  he  believe  in  women?  There 
are  good  women." 

Alicia  shrugged  her  purple-velvet  shoulders. 

"Those  are  the  women  who  would  like  to  have  me 
tortured,"  she  said. 

"Perhaps  those  are  the  women  you  have  tortured, 
Alicia." 

Alicia  laughed.     She  rose,  and  held  out  her  hand. 

"You  are  getting  quite  smart.  I  didn't  think  you 
capable  of  it.  Good-by,  dear.  I  am  so  pleased 
we  have  met  again.  Come  and  see  me  soon.  I  am 
in  most  days  at  five."  At  the  door  she  turned  back. 
"Don't  lose  your  heart  to  the  major, "  she  cried  lightly. 
'You  can  do  better  than  that.  You  might  even  try 
for  Tudor.  He's  horribly  hard  up." 


"MEN  ARE  FOOLS."  61 

Her  laugh  rippled  out  and  she  was  gone. 

"How  hateful  she  has  grown,"  the  heiress  reflected, 
bending  her  crimson  cheeks  above  the  shirts.  Then 
she  sighed:  "I  wonder  if  he  would  be  happy  with  her?" 


62  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
"APHRODITE." 

"Just  a  pinky  porcelain  trifle, 

Belle  Marquise, 
Wrought  in  rarest  rose  Dubarry. 
Quick  at  verbal  point  and  parry. 
Clever,  doubtless — but  to  marry, 
No,  Marquise!" 

The  night  of  the  tableaux  had  arrived. 

Millicent  had  now  been  some  three  months  at  the 
Towers.  Those  three  months  had  served  her  for  a 
very  liberal  education  as  regarded  goals  and  ambitions, 
to  say  nothing  of  bearing  and  grammar.  Her  faults 
had  been  faults  of  inexperience  and  association.  The 
armor  of  assurance  she  had  buckled  on  against  class 
antagonism  she  now  slipped  off  before  the  high-bred 
kindliness  accorded  her,  showing  sensitive  and  sterling- 
hearted.  Lady  Kershaw  by  no  means  despaired  of 
her  plot.  He  will  be  badly  thrown  by  Alicia,  she 
reflected,  and  Millicent  may  catch  him  in  rebound. 
Millicent  had  come  to  be  a  favorite,  and  the  expediency 
and  simplicity  of  the  arrangement  were  so  conspicu- 
ously obvious.  So  Lady  Kershaw  had  set  herself  to 
straighten  out  her  proposed  daughter-in-law's  notions 
of  things,  actual  and  deportmental.  Millicent's  rough 
edges  were  on  a  fair  road  toward  polishing  down,  the 
girl  herself  keeping  eyes  and  ears  open  with  a  dili- 
gence which  had  a  personal  hope  and  pain  in  it.  She 
had  no  thought  that  he  would  ever  care  for  her,  so 
immeasurably  above  her  as  he  seemed,  but  she  yearned 
to  stand  well  in  his  sight.  And,  as  there  is  no  such 
past-master  in  the  art  of  manners  as  is  love,  the 
heiress  had  learned  much. 

"Wear  your  heliotrope  gown,"  Lady  Kershaw  had 
counseled. 

So  she  came  rustling  down  in  this  Worth  master- 
piece of  frills  and  ruches,  with  rather  a  forlorn  face. 


"APHRODITE."  63 

She  had  fathomed  the  reason  of  the  major's  pre- 
absorption,  and  of  a  certain  harassed  fold  between  his 
brows.  She  had  taken  an  opportunity  to  inform  him 
casually  of  the  number  of  yards  in  Alicia's  Aphrodite 
gown,  lest  he,  too,  should  have  been  disquieted  by 
rumors.  She  had  thought  he  looked  relieved. 

He  smiled  approval  on  her  as  she  descended  to  the 
hall.  Her  bronze-brown  hair  was  becomingly  dressed, 
and  that  little  touch  of  forlornness  sat  prettily  upon 
her. 

"We  are  taking  a  tableau  with  us,"  he  said. 

She  touched  the  bouquet  at  her  breast. 

"Thank  you  for  the  flowers,"  she  smiled;  "they  are 
lovely." 

Lord  Waldon,  as  host,  had  done  his  part  pre-emi- 
nently well.  The  fine  old  house  was  massed  with 
orchid  blooms,  and  over  these  electric-lighted  butter- 
flies hovered,  illuminant.  A  special  train  from  town 
had  brought  down  a  number  of  distinguished  guests. 
The  programme  opened  with  a  ball.  The  tableaux 
were  to  come  later.  It  was  a  brilliant  scene,  and 
there  were  many  famous  beauties  there;  but  for  charm 
and  vivacity,  to  say  nothing  of  audacity,  Lady  Alicia 
"won  hands  down,"  as  it  was  generally  conceded  in 
the  smoke-room  In  the  ball-room  other  women  were 
admitted  to  have  claims. 

The  men  flocked  round  her  in  shoals.  Millicent, 
observing  the  alluring  Dresden -China  sweetness  of 
her  smiles,  remembered  cynically  her  confessions  of  a 
few  days  earlier. 

"I  wonder  if  it  was  true,"  she  deliberated,  "if  she  is 
really  acting  all  the  while,  and  if  she  is  thinking  all 
those  detestable  things  about  them." 

Of  all  the  men  there,  Ludwig  and  Kershaw  shared 
a  marked  preference,  but  she  was  very  prodigal  of 
smiles  and  sweetness.  Ludwig  and  Kershaw  rewarded 
her  graciousness  to  each  by  glaring  all  the  evening 
one  at  the  other.  But  the  prince  wore  an  easy  smile. 
He  flattered  himself  he  knew  well  enough  to  which  the 
battle  would  be.  Alicia  was  no  woman  to  marry  pov- 
erty. 


64  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

The  ball  over,  there  was  a  temporary  dimming  of 
the  scene  of  beauty.  The  superlatives  had  gathered 
to  their  rooms  to  dress. 

Meanwhile,  supper  was  served.  The  wines  were 
excellent,  the  dishes  incomparable.  No  expense  or 
pains  had  been  spared.  The  crowd  thronged  pres- 
ently, a  trifle  noisily  perhaps,  from  the  supper-room 
to  the  large  theatre  Waldon  had  recently  added  to  the 
house.  It  was  reached  by  a  covered  way  of  painted 
glass,  arranged  as  a  palmery,  richly  dusk  with  the 
stained  light  of  Oriental  jeweled  lanterns.  They  took 
their  places  expectantly.  The  auditorium  was  dimly 
lit.  The  electric  footlights  threw  a  glow  of  deli- 
cate tint  upon  a  gorgeous  satin  curtain,  resplendent 
with  some  mythological  fancy  from  a  famous  brush. 
The  orchestra  behind  a  screen  of  shrubs  and  ferns  and 
tropical  plants  had  just  concluded  tuning  up,  and,  as 
the  spectators  now  lounged  in,  plunged  into  a  swell  of 
harmony. 

The  auditorium  was  arranged  music-hall  wise,  with 
small  tables,  and  a  promenade.  The  men,  and  a  few 
of  the  women,  smoked,  and  fruits  and  wines  and 
sweetmeats  were  served  round  at  intervals. 

Programmes  of  scarlet  satin  printed  in  gold  made 
splashes  of  gay  color. 

"How  detestable  she  looks,"  Millicent  observed, 
with  some  heat,  of  a  pretty  little  woman,  who  lolled 
back,  with  her  legs  crossed,  smoking  a  cigarette. 

The  major  caught  her  words.     He  smiled. 

"It  isn't  graceful;  and  she  only  pretends  to  like  it. 
Walmer — she  is  Lady  Walmer — tells  me  it  often  makes 
her  ill.  But  she  will  do  it.  She  thinks  it  cine." 

"I  think  it  is  disgusting.  Why  does  not  somebody 
tell  her  how  ugly  she  looks?" 

"A  man  couldn't,  and  a  woman  wouldn't,"  Vaux, 
on  the  other  side  of  her,  said  cynically. 

"Why  wouldn't  a  woman?"  Millicent  demanded, 
turning  on  him. 

"  'Tisn't  good  biz.  Women  don't  go  out  of  their 
way  to  give  one  another  points  in  the  art  of  looking 
their  best." 


"APHRODITE."  65 

"According  to  you,  women  are  wretches.  They 
have  no  sense  of  fairness  or  friendliness,  or  any  other 
nice  quality." 

Vaux  removed  his  cigarette  in  order  that  he  might 
the  better  observe  the  heiress'  anger.  He  was  talking 
to  tease  her.  Since  he  had  come  to  years  of  discre- 
tion, his  bete  noir  had  been  to  marry  an  ill-tempered 
woman.  It  was  a  pitfall  into  which  his  father  had 
strayed,  and  the  paternal  error  had  descended  in  mul- 
tiple suffering  upon  the  children.  Vaux  often  ate 
bread  and  cheese  in  the  stables  with  the  grooms  in 
preference  to  dining  with  his  mother  in  her  tempers. 
He  had  begun  life  young,  and  had  lived  it  hard,  with 
the  result  that,  at  the  age  of  thirty,  he  was  somewhat 
of  a  dyspeptic  and  a  cynic,  with  enough  consciousness 
of  his  liver  to  make  him  softly  melancholy.  His  pre- 
mature hypochondriasis  took  the  form  of  a  sombre  con- 
viction that  the  heiress  it  was  incumbent  upon  him 
to  marry  might  turn  out  to  be  also  a  Tartar. 

"And  a  chap  had  far  better  be  tied  to  a  grinnin' 
mendicant  than  to  a  grislin'  Midas,"  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  saying. 

The  saying  was  cited  by  his  friends  on  occasions  as 
evidence  that  Vaux  was  by  no  means  the  fool  he  might 
be  taken  for. 

"Dashed  if  a  chap  who  could  make  up  that  couldn't 
write  poetry  if  he  was  put  to  it, ' '  one  of  his  friends 
had  gone  so  far  as  to  say. 

And  it  came  about  that  Vaux  was  regarded  in  some 
quarters  as  an  undeveloped  poet,  one  who  could  run 
even  Kershaw  close,  if  he  had  but  taken  early  enough 
to  the  trade. 

But,  I  suppose,  as  there  are  situations  wherein  the 
dumb  speak,  so  Vaux's  terror  of  conjugal  Tartardom 
was  vital  enough  to  inspire  his  one  epigrammatic 
achievement.  I  doubt  if  he  himself  were  conscious 
of  its  alliterative  excellence.  Certainly  he  did  not 
often  show  capable  of  originating  a  remark  which 
approached  it  for  terseness  and  sagacity. 

To  Millicent's  outburst  he  set  the  regard  of  a  calcu- 


66  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

lating  eye  upon  her  lips.  Experience  had  warned  him 
of  women  whose  lips  tighten  with  anger. 

"Odd  that  I  look  upon  your  sex  as  quite  a  decent 
provision  of  nature,  Miss  Rivers.  It's  a  beastly  bore 
pourin'  out  one's  own  tea  and  payin'  calls  and  all  the 
social  grind  women  love.  I'm  blessed  if  I  know  how 
we  should  get  along  without  'em,  anyhow  till  some 
chap  invents  a  machine  to  do  all  the  faggin'  things 
they  take  off  our  hands. ' ' 

The  heiress  sent  him  a  withering  look,  but  he  was 
relieved  to  discover  that  her  lips  did  not  tighten.  It 
did  not  occur  to  him  that  "other  women,  other  symp- 
toms. ' '  A  certain  lip  contraction  always  revived  in 
him  a  sensation  of  sickness  he  had  experienced  in  boy- 
hood, when  his  terrified  glance  swept  his  mother's  face 
for  danger-signals. 

"Behold  me  duly  shriveled,"  he  responded  to  the 
look,  resuming  his  cigarette.  "But  'pon  honor  Pm 
the  stanchest  friend  anywhere  to  women.  I'd  let 
'em  have  rights,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  I'd  much  rather 
be  doctored  by  a  woman  than  by  a  man,  so  long  as  her 
bonnet  was  smart.  And  I'm  sure  I  should  go  regu= 
larly  to  church  if  we  only  had  a  pretty  parsoness. 
I'm  awfully  liberal — Kershaw  will  tell  you  I  am — I 
think  it's  mere  lunacy  for  chaps  to  do  work  when 
women  are  only  thirstin'  to  do  it  for  'em.  I  assure 
you  it  ain't  I  who  keep  you  out  of  your  rights.  All  I 
ask  is  a  cigar  (good  brand),  whisky  (good  brand),  a 
novel  (as  bad  as  you  please),  and  to  be  left  alone  to  lie 
under  the  trees  in  summer,  and  on  a  lounge  in  winter. 
I  wouldn't  even  kick  about  goin'  to  prison,  not  if  the 
bobby  was  charmin',  now  would  I,  Kershaw?  Stand 
by  me,  old  man,  you  know  what  an  up-to-date,  liberal- 
minded  chap  I  am." 

Kershaw  laughed. 

' '  He  is  not  altogether  bad, ' '  he  defended  him.  ' '  Not 
quite  so  bad  as  he  makes  himself  out  to  be,  at  any 
rate." 

"I  think  it  is  very  stupid  for  people  to  pretend  to  be 
bad  at  all,"  Millicent  said,  crossly,  watching  the 
major's  harassed  profile,  which  his  fixed  attention  on 


"APHRODITE."  67 

the  curtain  turned  to  her,  and  thinking  back  of  Alicia's 
confession,  and  wondering  how  much  truth  it  con- 
tained. 

Just  then  the  curtain  rose  on  the  first  tableau,  "A 
Roman  Victory."  Imperial  Caesar  clad  in  flowing 
garments,  with  a  leopard  skin  about  his  shoulders, 
was  shown  seated  in  a  triumphal  car  of  ivory.  To  the 
car  were  yoked,  in  silver  harness,  some  dozen  ^Ethio- 
pian boys,  their  dark  polished  bodies  lightly  poised  as 
in  the  act  of  running,  contrasting  picturesquely  with 
their  white  short  tunics,  and  the  classic  draperies  of 
other  characters.  Beautiful  girls  leaned  toward  the 
conqueror,  smiling  and  stretching  flower-laden  hands 
to  him,  casting  wreaths  and  blossoms  in  his  way.  A 
goup  of  swarthy  warriors  in  chains,  and  behind  these 
a  band  of  graceful  female  captives,  showed  some  of 
the  trophies  of  war. 

The  air  rang  with  applause.  Lord  Waldon  was  evi- 
dent in  the  emperor,  and  his  guests  mingled  recogni- 
tion of  his  hospitality  with  their  admiration  of  the 
group. 

The  curtain  fell,  then  rose  again,  and  fell  finally 
amid  a  burst  of  enthusiasm. 

"Rattlin'  good,"  Vaux  commented,  clapping  his 
hands.  "Runs  the  'Palace'  pretty  close.  Wonder 
Waldon  don't  start  a  West-end  music-hall.  He'd 
make  money  if  he  were  to.  What  comes  next,  Miss 
Rivers?" 

Millicent  passed  him  a  programme.  He  took  it 
languidly. 

"Oh,  I  say  now,  you  are  hard  on  a  chap.  I  was  put- 
tin'  the  burden  and  heat  o'  the  day  and  that  sort  of 
business  on  you  as  a  first  installment  of  'rights,'  and 
then  you  set  me  to  look  out  my  own  information.  I 
gave  you  credit  for  more  independence.  'Pon  honor 
I  did." 

"If  you  talk  anymore  nonsense,"  Millicent  laughed, 
"I  shall  have  to  tell  you,  as  Lady  Alicia  did,  not  to  be 
absurd.  That  seems  to  be  a  kind  of  knock-down  blow 
with  you." 

Kershaw's  face  was  all  interest. 


68  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"What  extreme  of  nonsense  made  Alicia  snub  you 
so  badly?"  he  questioned. 

In  a  moment  Vaux  turned  nasty.  It  may  have  been 
a  spasm  of  indigestion.  He  had  not  long  supped,  and 
with  him,  as  has  been  stated,  dyspepsia  was  the  per- 
verted tactics  his  over-taxed  economy  applied  to  food. 
He  was  good-humored  for  fifty-nine  minutes  of  each 
hour,  in  the  sixtieth  he  was  capable  of  cutting  up 
rough.  He  darted  the  major  one  malicious  glance. 
Then  he  fired  his  shot. 

"Oh,"  he  drawled,  nonchalantly,  "Alicia said  it  was 
absurd  for  me  to  imagine  the  heathen  person  she  is 
playin'  wore  clothes.  I  suppose  it  was.  But  I  was 
never  a  chap  for  mythology.  I  suggested  bringin'  the 
heathen  person's  condition  somewhat  up  to  date,  and 
she  said  again,  'Don't  be  absurd.'  Naturally  I  felt 
snubbed,  as  I  took  it  to  mean  that  my  suggestion  was 
quite  out  of  the  runnin'." 

He  took  out  his  cigarette  case  and  selected  one  from 
its  contents  with  a  casual  air. 

Millicent,  crimson  with  indignation,  assailed  him. 

"There  are  forty  yards  of  silk  in  her  dress.  It  is  a 
shame  to  talk  of  her  in  such  a  way,  and  so  you  will 
presently  see." 

He  lit  his  cigarette.  "You  do  not  appreciate  the 
Lady  Alicia's  talents,"  he  said,  smoothly.  "I  back  her 
against  any  woman  in  England  to  dispose  of  forty 
yards  of  silk  with  the  least  result  in  clothin'.  Alicia 
is  really  a  genius  when  you  come  to  know  her." 

Millicent  turned  to  the  major.  She  was  astonished 
at  his  silence.  Why  did  he  not  say  something  in 
Alicia's  defense?  Was  it  manly  to  listen  in  silence  to 
her  defamation? 

That  he  heard  and  resented  Vaux's  flippancies  was 
obvious  from  his  face.  The  old  look  of  fight  had  come 
to  it.  His  jaw  was  set  sternly  as  it  had  been  that  day. 
His  eyes  were  fixed  and  gleaming.  For  one  moment 
he  glanced  down  into  Millicent 's  upturned  wondering 
eyes.  Her  own  quailed.  She  wondered  no  longer. 
The  rage  of  him  was  no  weapon  wherewith  to  meet 


"APHRODITE."  69 

Vaux's  impertinences.  And,  man  of  the  world,  he  knew 
it  and  remained  inert  glaring  before  him. 

She  pounced  on  Vaux  tempestuously.  "I  don't 
think  men  ought  to  say  horrible  things  about  women, 
Mr.  Vaux." 

Vaux  laughed.  His  minute  of  malice  had  passed. 
He  was  essentially  good-hearted,  and  moreover  was 
fond  of  Kershaw.  He  was  sorry  now  that  he  had  so 
spoken. 

"Why,  what  should  we  have  to  talk  about?"  he 
demurred.  "It's  the  royal  road  to  a  reputation  for 
smartness.  A  chap  is  never  so  brilliant  as  when  he's 
tearin'  a  woman's  name  to  tatters.  " 

"But  if  it  isn't  true?" 

"It  is  all  the  more  amusin',  because  it  will  be  so 
much  more  unexpected.  Hallo!  Curtain  risin'? 
Why,  bless  me,  there  she  is!" 

There  was  disappointment  in  his  voice,  and  both 
disappointment  and  chagrin  in  his  face.  He  liked  his 
prophecies  to  verify  themselves. 

Alicia  was  the  sole  figure  on  the  stage.  She  knelt 
in  a  squalid  cell,  her  hands  clasped  despairingly,  her 
face  upturned,  her  corn-colored  hair  streaming  in 
golden  abandon  to  her  knees.  Her  clasped  hands 
were  heavily  manacled.  One  slender  foot,  silver  bare, 
was  fastened  by  an  iron  chain.  A  platter,  cup  and 
plate  stood  on  the  ground  beside  her.  Straw,  heaped 
in  a  corner,  served  her  for  bed.  She  was  draped  in 
white  from  head  to  toe,  only  the  bare  delicate  foot 
showing  where  her  dress  had  fallen  aside  to  her  devo- 
tional pose. 

The  lovely  upturned  face,  the  limpid  eyes,  the 
beautiful  abandon  of  streaming  hair,  the  slender  plead- 
ing hands,  and  more  than  all,  the  tender  rapture  of 
expression,  made  her  appear  some  creature  of  another 
world  by  contrast  with  the  dismal  squalor  of  her  cell. 
She  seemed  to  diffuse  a  holy  spiritual  light  about  her. 

The  tableau  was  a  gem. 

It  sounded  as  though  the  clapping  of  hands  must 
split  the  roof.  Cries  of  "Bravo!"  and  "Brava!"  were 
shouted  as  the  curtain  fell.  In  a  moment  it  rose 


70  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

again.  All  was  silence.  Then  the  applause  broke 
but  afresh  more  vehemently  than  before.  Three  times 
the  curtain  rose.  Then  to  a  fourth  tumultuous 
demand,  Lord  Waldon  appeared  and  shook  his  head 
deprecatingly.  They  must  not  too  far  tax  the  beauti- 
ful poseuse. 

"Absolutely  rippin',"  Vaux  was  heard  to  comment 
as  the  plaudits  subsided.  "Marvelous  how  anyone 
could  keep  so  still.  Must  have  been  fixed  up  with  one 
of  those  photographer's  screws." 

Kershaw  was  radiant.  She  was  a  poem  incarnate. 
What  mere  words  could  express  her?  His  eyes  still 
glowed  with  the  delights  of  vision. 

"Looked  a  deal  more  like  a  Christian  than  a  heathen, 
I  must  say,"  Vaux  protested.  "Thought  Aphrodite 
was  somethin'  to  do  with  Venus." 

"That  wasn't  Aphrodite — that  was  Fabiola.  'Aph- 
rodite Rising  from  the  Sea, '  is  the  last  of  the  tableaux, " 
Millicent  informed  him  out  of  the  depths  of  her  pro- 
gramme. 

"Ah,  I  thought  it  was  queer.  Never  heard  of 
Venus  prayin',  or  that  kind  o'  thing.  Not  in  her  line. ' ' 

Three  more  pictures  followed,  all  excellent,  but  miss- 
ing the  acme  of  perfection  given  by  Alicia's  exquisite 
charm. 

Then  the  curtain  fell,  and  after  some  minutes'  buzz 
of  approbation  came  a  hush  of  expectancy.  Millicent 
noted  the  ashen  tension  of  Kershaw' s  face.  The 
sheen  of  the  painted  satin  curtain  trembled,  swayed 
and  fell  apart  in  shining  folds.  The  assembly  breathed 
as  from  one  great  lung. 

Perhaps  nothing  more  perfect  has  been  achieved  in 
the  way  of  living  pictures.  On  the  foaming  crest  of 
a  great  wave,  amid  lesser  waves,  marvelously  mod- 
eled in  tinted  glass,  and  so  illumined  as  to  reflect  and 
sparkle  in  the  lime-light  like  sunshine  on  water,  floated 
an  iridescent  sea-shell.  It  was  studded  with  gems  and 
dainty  seaweeds,  and  a  fringe  of  sea-grass  hung  glis- 
tening from  the  lips  of  its  pink,  open  mouth.  Within 
it  lay  like  a  pearl  in  the  pink  cup  of  its  mother  shell, 
rising  and  falling  with  the  rock  of  moving  water,  the 


"APHRODITE."  71 

lovely  Aphrodite.  Her  beautiful  arms  were  bare  and 
wreathed  above  her  in  soft  languor ;  her  slender  limbs 
showing  pink  and  perfect  through  the  rich  translucence 
of  her  draperies  seemed  flushed  with  the  joy  of  awak- 
ing. Out  of  the  golden  opulence  of  wind-tossed  hair, 
her  flower-face  smiled — alluring,  provoking,  peerless. 
In  her  eyes  lay  witchery  and  yielding.  The  Fabiola 
of  some  minutes  earlier  had  vanished.  Her  mobile 
lovely  features  had  then  lent  themselves  to  the  forti- 
tude and  rapt  resignation  of  the  saint,  as  they  now  lent 
themselves  to  the  witchery  of  the  wanton.  For  Alicia 
rendered  her  Aphrodite  as  no  guileless  immaculacy  of 
nature,  but  as  the  temptress,  illicit  and  irresistible. 

Alas  for  poor  Millicent's  illusions  as  to  the  draping 
capabilities  of  forty  yards !  The  forty  yards  lay  white 
in  silken  confusion  about  her,  while  only  as  much  as 
would  lightly  cover  and  reveal,  beneath  the  cling  of 
their  accordion  folds,  the  rosy  undulations  of  her  form, 
lay  over  her. 

Millicent,  glancing  horrified  from  her  friend's  shame- 
lessness  with  pity  into  Kershaw's  face,  saw  his  set  jaw 
move  instinctively  as  though  to  moisten  dry  lips.  His 
breath  caught  deep  in  his  chest.  His  hands  gripped 
his  knees. 

"Brava!"  shouted  the  prince,  with  a  flush  on  his 
heavy  face,  forgetting  the  injunction  not  to  applaud 
until  the  curtain  fell,  "bravissima!  bravissima!" 

The  lips  of  the  Aphrodite  unfolded  a  fraction  fur- 
ther over  her  white  teeth.  The  voluptuous  drooped 
lids  quivered.  The  Venus  Victrix  was  apparent. 
"He'll  propose  to-night,"  Vaux  whispered  his  neigh- 
bor on  the  other  side.  "You can  hear  it  in  his  voice." 

Millicent  sat  looking  before  her  with  a  sickened 
face. 

Three  times  the  curtain  rose.  The  fourth  time 
Aphrodite  dropped  her  lovely  arms  and  yawned  auda- 
ciously in  the  admiring  faces  of  the  house. 

The  pretty  effrontery  of  the  action,  the  challenge  of 
her  lovely  eyes  intoxicated  them.  There  was  a  wild 
shouting  of  applause,  and  cheers  and  laughter  from 
the  men.  Some  of  the  women  sat  with  stony  faces. 


72  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

Lady  Walmer  ventured  a  little  hiss.  Millicent  turned 
in  her  direction. 

"That  cigarette  is  making  her  ill, "  she  said.  "Can't 
you  get  her  something?  She  is  perfectly  green." 

Vaux  laughed. 

"That's  envy,"  he  said,  "not  tobacco.  She's  regret- 
tin'  that  twenty  years  ago,  when  she  had  a  figure, 
society  wouldn't  have  stood  an  entertainment  like 
to-night's.  Hallo!  Where  is  the  major  off  to?" 

With  the  falling  of  the  curtain  Kershaw  had  abruptly 
risen.  He  now  showed,  looking  neither  to  the  right 
nor  to  the  left,  his  fine  head  towering  through  the 
auditorium  as  he  made  toward  the  door. 

Lady  Kershaw,  who  had  been  seated  on  his  other 
side,  followed  him  across  the  room  with  anxious  eyes. 

"Good  Lord!"  ejaculated  Vaux,  surprised  out  of 
himself,  '4s  hegoin'  to  carry  her  a  way  by  main  force?" 


'ALICIA  HAS  CHOSEN."  73 


CHAPTER  X. 
"ALICIA  HAS  CHOSEN." 

'  'Lass,  I  love  you !    Love  is  strong  and  some  men's 
hearts  are  tender." 

He  stood  at  the  door  by  which  the  theatre  communi- 
cated with  the  house.  All  who  came  down  from  the 
dressing-rooms  must-pass  that  way.  His  face  was  set, 
his  eyes  gleamed,  the  battle-look  gripped  his  features. 
He  stood  in  the  shade  of  a  curtain  and  waited. 

Presently  those  who  had  taken  part  in  the  tableaux 
came  out  singly  and  in  groups,  laughing  and  chatting. 
He  did  not  seem  conscious  of  them. 

When  she  appeared,  fortunately  for  his  purpose, 
alone — he  strode  up  to  her  and  caught  her  hand. 

' '  I  have  something  to  say  to  you, ' '  he  said,  simply. 

She  shrank,  half  laughing,  half  afraid.  Her  domin- 
ion over  him  was  shown,  even  at  that  moment  of  his 
strength,  by  the  sudden  blenching  of  his  face  as  she 
turned  her  laughing,  apprehensive  eyes  to  him/ 

"I  am  tired,"  she  pleaded,  shrugging  her  shoulders 
and  yawning. 

"Come  to  the  palm-house,"  he  said. 

He  had  her  hand  in  his  and  she  went,  dragging  on 
him  like  a  petulant  child.  It  had  only  taken  a  moment, 
and  by  the  time  the  swing-door  opened  to  let  out  a 
chattering  couple,  the  two  had  gone. 

"Where  is  Alicia?  Alicia  said  she  would  wait  here 
for  us,  and  now  she  has  gone." 

"Did  you  ever  know  Alicia  to  keep  a  promise?"  was 
the  cynical  comment;  "let  us  go  and  look  for  her. 
The  prince  is  asking  for  her. " 

In  the  palm-house,  he  had  her  in  his  arms.  He 
gathered  her  yielding  softness  to  him  with  a  passion 
irresistible.  He  kissed  her  strenuously. 

"You   are   mine.     You   are  mine,"   he  whispered, 


74  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

hoarsely.  "Darling — darling!  Come  to  me,  come 
with  me.  They  are  spoiling  you.  Dearest,  they  are 
spoiling  your  beautiful  womanhood. ' ' 

For  one  minute  she  resisted,  pushing  against  him 
with  petulant  hands.  All  at  once  she  yielded.  She 
set  her  palms  on  his  shoulders,  and  drawing  her  head 
back,  looked  him  in  the  face.  She  caught  her  breath 
in  an  exultation  of  dominion.  Then  she  laughed  and 
surrendered.  She  twined  her  arms  about  his  throat 
and  cooed  with  her  cheek  against  his  shoulder. 

"Are  you  going  to  eat  me,  you  fierce  ogre?"  she 
protested,  playfully. 

"Darling,  darling,"  he  cried,  passionately. 

She  clasped  her  hands  behind  his  neck,  and  lifting 
herself  against  him,  set  her  lips  creeping  over  his  throat. 

He  strained  her  to  him.  "My  dove  needs  a  keeper," 
he  said,  in  hot  broken  whispers.  "My  white  dove 
needs  a  harsh  strong  keeper  to  guard  her  innocence. ' ' 

She  laid  a  little  hand  above  his  heart. 

"How  it  beats!"  she  purred. 

He  lifted  the  hand  and  kissed  it  impetuously.  He 
crushed  her  in  a  strong  embrace. 

"I  was  poor,"  he  said,  "now  I  am  rich — I  am  rich." 

There  was  a  long  silence. 

Then  she  began  to  cry  and  clung  about  him. 

"Take  me  away,"  she  sobbed,  weakly.  "Take  me 
where  they  cannot  find  me.  The  prince  will  propose. 
He  is  looking  for  me  now.  They  will  make  me  marry 
him  if  you  do  not  take  me  away." 

"You  cannot  marry  him,"  he  protested,  sternly. 
"He  is  not  fit  for  you  to  marry. " 

' '  I  must  if  you  do  not  take  me  away, ' '  she  wept. 

' '  I  will  announce  your  engagement  to  me. ' ' 

"I  am  afraid.  Father  will  kill  me.  They  would 
break  it  off.  I  was  to  accept  him  to-night. ' ' 

"Monstrous,"  he  protested  again.  "They  cannot 
make  you  marry  him  against  your  will.  He  is  not  fit. 
And  besides  you  care  for  me,  my  dearest. ' ' 

"Yes,  I  care  for  you.  So  take  me  away,  take  me 
away  now,  Richard.  Now!" 

"Impossible,"  he  said. 


"ALICIA  HAS  CHOSEN."  75 

She  threw  herself  against  him  fretfully.  She  caught 
his  elbows  in  her  palms  and  shook  him. 

"Oh,  you  shall  take  me  away,"  she  sobbed. 

"You  are  a  child,"  he  said.  "How  can  I  take  you 
away?  Dear,  I  have  no  right.  What  would  the  world 
say?" 

"What  does  it  matter?"  she  cried,  waywardly — 
"what  does  anything  matter  except  that  I'm  so  fond 
of  you?" 

He  kissed  her  while  he  loosed  her  clinging  arms. 
He  panted  as  though  he  had  run  a  race.  His  face  was 
white  and  dragged.  He  put  her  from  him,  drawing 
her  to  a  chair.  She  dropped  into  it,  perversely,  turn- 
ing her  face  from  him. 

"Dearest,"  he  said,  struggling  with  himself,  "you 
do  not  know  what  you  say.  If  you  were  less  innocent, 
you  would  never  tempt  me  so  cruelly. ' ' 

She  leaned  her  head  against  the  iron  chair-rail.  Her 
bared  white  shoulders  heaved. 

'  'You  do  not  care  for  me, ' '  she  cried,  roughly.  '  'If 
you  cared  for  me  you  could  not  say  no. ' ' 

He  laid  a  hand  on  the  prone  fair  head. 

"Heavens!"  he  said,  "do  I  not!" 

Footsteps  sounded  down  the  passage.  She  lifted  her 
head,  listening.  In  a  moment  her  mood  changed. 
She  started  up. 

"It  is  Ludwig,"  she  whispered.  There  was  an  eager 
look  in  her  eyes.  She  collected  herself  rapidly. 

"For  God's  sake  keep  quiet,"  she  implored  him. 
"Keep  quiet.  I  want  time.  I  have  been  mad.  Give 
me  time  to  think  it  over. ' ' 

They  could  hear  a  guttural  smothered  imprecation 
as  he  stumbled  outside  the  door. 

"If  you  keep  still,"  she  whispered,  in  tense,  level 
undertones,  "he  will  never  discover  us.  For  pity's 
sake  don't  let  him  find  us  here." 

"Why,"  he  protested,  "what  do  I  care  for  Ludwig?" 

The  place  was  dimly  lit.  They  were  screened  by 
a  bank  of  tropical  leaves.  She  gathered  her  skirts 
about  her;  she  looked  into  his  face  beseechingly,  put- 


76  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

ting  a  small  imperative  finger  to  her  lips ;  there  were 
calculation  and  set  purpose  in  her  face. 

"Alicia?"  Ludwig  muttered,  hoarsely,  across  the 
shadows.  His  breath  came  to  them  heavy  with  wine. 
"Are  you  there,  Alicia?" 

She  scarcely  breathed,  crouching  lower  and  closer. 

But  Kershaw  stepped  out  into  the  light. 

"Lady  Alicia  is  here,  Prince  Ludwig,"  he  said 
quietly,  "but  she  is  very  tired  after  her  performance." 

The  prince  glared  insolently  at  him.  He  pushed 
past  him  without  speaking. 

She  had  risen,  and  stood  smoothing  out  her  laces 
with  a  show  of  unconcern.  She  lifted  a  gloved  hand, 
and  half -yawning,  half -laughing  behind  it : 

'  'I  was  resting  in  the  shade  after  the  heat  and  glare, ' ' 
she  said,  listlessly;  "I  am  feeling  horribly  fagged." 

She  scanned  his  face  with  limpid  glances.  She  looked 
toward  him,  smiling  from  beneath  her  lids. 

He  glared  from  one  to  the  other  with  suspicious 
surliness. 

Alicia  sank  down  into  her  chair  again. 

'  'Oh,  you  would  never  believe  how  worn  out  I  am, ' ' 
she  pleaded. 

He  swept  hot  eyes  over  her  cool  beauty. 

"It  was  a  brave  performance,"  he  said,  caustically. 

She  shrugged  her  pretty  shoulders. 

"Pray,  continue  resting,"  he  insisted,  "I  can  talk 
to  you  here. " 

He  turned  to  Kershaw. 

'  'Thanks  for  your  guidance,  major, ' '  he  said,  haugh- 
tily, "I  had  been  searching  the  house  for  the  fair  Aph- 
rodite."  He  nodded,  dismissing  him,  and,  turning 
his  back,  moved  up  to  Alicia. 

But  Kershaw  moved  after  him. 

"Lady  Alicia  is  tired, "  he  said,  quietly,  "we  must 
not  further  tax  her  to-night. ' '  He  bent  a  stiff  neck  to 
Ludwig,  then  he  presented  his  arm  to  her.  "Come," 
he  said,  gently,  "I  will  take  you  to  Lady  Winder- 
mere.  " 

She  did  not  rise.  She  flashed  him  a  petulant  glance. 
She  muttered  a  fretful  negative  beneath  her  breath. 


"ALICIA  HAS  CHOSEN."  77 

Ludwig  laughed — a  laugh  which  was  an  imprecation. 

"You  are  monstrously  considerate,"  he  said,  "but 
as  Lady  Windermere  has  commissioned  me  to  look 
after  her  daughter,  your  consideration  seerns  super- 
fluous. " 

Kershaw  ignored  him. 

' '  Come, ' '  he  said,  still  offering  his  arm.  But  she 
turned  aside. 

"Let  me  alone,"  she  objected,  captiously,  "I  want 
to  rest. ' ' 

The  major  straightened  himself. 

"Then  we  will  leave  you  here  in  quiet.  Come, 
prince." 

Liidwig  flashed  him  a  turbulent  look. 

"Come?"  he  echoed,  "come  where?  and  why  the 
devil  must  I  have  you  for  companion?" 

"Only  as  far  as  the  door,"  the  major  said,  "we  will 
then  part  company,  unless,"  he  added,  pointedly, 
."you  have  a  mind  to  go  further." 

Their  eyes  met.  Lud  wig's  lowered.  He  had  no 
mind  to  go  further ;  he  took  no  indiscriminate  risks  in 
life. 

"I'm  in  no  mood  to  appreciate  your  company  even 
so  far  as  the  door,  sir,"  he  blustered,  "and,  at  present, 
I  have  Lady  Windermere 's  commission  to  look  after 
her  daughter. ' ' 

He  flung  himself  into  a  chair  beside  her. 

Kershaw  moved  to  her  other  side,  and  stood  there 
like  a  man  of  stone. 

Alicia  sat  with  her  hands  in  her  lap,  humming  the 
refrain  of  a  waltz,  the  while  she  drummed  the  floor 
indifferently  with  satin  heels. 

After  some  minutes  Ludwig  broke  out  into  a  hoarse 
laugh. 

"I  believe  you  have  a  proverb  in  your  language, 
Major  Kershaw,  to  the  effect  that  two  are  company." 

"We  have,"  the  major  admitted,  "but  it  had  not 
occurred  to  me  that  you  were  of  it." 

The  prince  laughed  again,  but  there  was  no  mirth 
in  his  humor.  He  got  up  sullenly. 

' '  I  am  not  fond  of  ridiculous  situations, ' '  he  said, 


78  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

shrugging  his  heavy  shoulders.  "Au  revoir,  Major 
Kershaw. ' ' 

Alicia  stretched  a  lissome  hand  to  him.  She  mur- 
mured an  inarticulate  appeal. 

He  lifted  the  hand  and  put  his  lips  to  it  half  ironi- 
cally. 

"Au  revoir,  Lady  Alicia,"  he  said;  "I  must  tell 
Lady  Windermere  I  am  forestalled. ' ' 

She  leaned  up,  dropping  her  shoulders.  From 
where  he  stood  above  her  he  saw,  amid  the  chiffons  of 
her  bodice,  the  two  white  roundnesses  to  which  her 
neck  curved.  She  drew  him  with  seductive  eyes. 

"Don't  go,"  she  whispered. 

His  looks  devoured  her.     His  face  flushed  dully. 

"You  cannot  make  two  men  ridiculous,"  he  blurted 
harshly;  "you  must  choose." 

The  major,  standing  stern  and  silent  on  the  other 
side  of  her,  saw  the  weak  yielding  in  her  face,  saw 
the  flushed  coarseness  of  her  tempter's.  How  could 
she  know  what  a  brute  the  man  was?  How  could  she 
know  to  what  she  pledged  herself?  He  made  up  his 
mind.  Poor!  He  was  poor,  but  poverty  was  not  the 
worst  of  ills.  Poverty  was  a  bugbear  wherewith  her 
worldly  family  had  frightened  her. 

He  stepped  before  her,  between  her  and  the  prince. 

"Alicia  has  chosen,"  he  said,  quietly.  "She  has 
done  me  that  highest  honor." 

She  cried  out  angrily,  hiding  her  face  in  her  hands. 

Ludwig  purpled  to  the  temples.   His  hands  clenched. 

"Damn  you!"  he  cried,  furiously,  "what  right  have 
you?" 

Kershaw  eyed  him  sternly. 

"None,"  he  said,  "but  that  she  has  given  me." 

"She's  a  cursed  flirt!"  the  prince  ejaculated,  vio- 
lently, and  flung  from  the  room. 

She  broke  into  hysterical  weeping.  She  drummed 
her  fists  fiercely  on  the  chair-rails.  He  knelt  beside 
her.  He  put  an  arm  about  her. 

"Be  brave,  my  darling,"  he  encouraged  her. 
"Trust  me  to  carry  you  through  it." 

She  pushed  him  away. 


"ALICIA  HAS  CHOSEN."  79 

"I  can  never  be  poor,"  she  cried.  "You  have 
spoiled  my  life.  I  will  never  be  poor. " 

"Dearest,"  he  said,  "there  are  worse  things  than 
poverty.  And  there  is  no  better  thing  than  love. ' ' 

"You  have  sent  him  away.  I  should  have  been  a 
princess,"  she  insisted,  wrathfully. 

"Thank  heaven  you  have  escaped  it,"  he  returned. 
"Darling,  I  will  teach  you  all  that  love  means.  They 
would  spoil  you  with  their  worldliness. ' ' 

"I  will  never  be  poor,"  she  broke  out,  vengefully. 
4 '  You  have  ruined  my  life ! ' ' 

"You  shall  know  what  a  man's  devoted  love  can  be, 
dear.  Love  with  us,  we  can  laugh  at  poverty." 

She  tore  at  her  dress  in  childish  rage.  The  chiffons 
and  lace  hung  in  rags  about  her  lovely  bust.  He  put 
her  cloak  tenderly  about  her. 

Suddenly  she  caught  his  hand.  She  stood  clutching 
it  and  staring  up  at  him.  Then  she  carried  it  to  her 
mouth,  and  bit  at  it.  Her  teeth  almost  met  in  the  flesh. 
Blood  oozed. 

"I  hate  you,"  she  said,  beside  herself.  "You  have 
ruined  my  life. ' ' 

He  wiped  his  hand,  and  wiped  his  whiter  face. 

"Come,"  he  said,  "I  will  take  you  to  your  mother." 


8o  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER  XL 
WON! 

"  As  for  the  girl,  she  turned  to  her  new  being, 
Came,  as  a  bird  that  hears  its  fellows  call ; 

Blessed,  as  the  blind  that  blesses  God  for  seeing; 
Grew  as  a  flower  on  which  the  sun-rays  fall ; 

Loved,  if  you  will ;  she  never  named  it  so ; 
Love  comes  unseen — we  only  see  it  go." 

It  was  no  face  of  a  triumphant  lover  which  Kershaw 
wore  as  they  drove  home  that  night.  He  had  won. 
It  was  true  he  had  won,  but —  It  is  rarely  that  there 
is  no  "but"  inhuman  bliss!  His  lips  thrilled  with  the 
memory  of  her  kisses.  His  hand  throbbed  where  her 
teeth  had  pierced.  His  heart  was  full  of  tenderness. 
His  mind — there  seemed  a  wound  where  his  mind  was 
— a  wound  he  was  salving  with  excuses. 

Millicent  watching  him  from  her  corner,  wondered 
at  the  trouble  of  his  face.  She  guessed  a  part  of  that 
which  had  happened.  The  dominant  ownership  of 
him  as  he  returned  to  the  ball-room  with  Alicia,  pale 
and  submissive,  on  his  arm,  the  air  of  guardianship 
with  which  he  had  entrusted  her  to  Lady  Windermere, 
had  been  read  aright  by  many. 

The  prince  had  been  seen  to  stride  heavily  up  the 
room  and  make  his  adieux  with  a  lowering  face,  while 
Alicia  was  yet  absent.  And  it  had  been  generally 
anticipated  that  to-night  she  would  certainly  have 
brought  him  to  book. 

Lady  Windermere  had  received  her  at  Kershaw's 
hands  with  an  insolent  glare.  But  Kershaw  was  in  no 
mood  to  be  intimidated  by  her  glarings.  His  indigna- 
tion against  her  for  the  wrongs  of  evil  training  and 
example  she  had  done  the  beautiful  creature  given  her 
for  child — for  so  it  presented  itself  to  him — armed  him 
against  her. 


WON.  8 1 

"Will  Lord  Windermere  be  at  home  in  the  morn- 
ing?" he  had  questioned. 

"I  believe  so,"  her  ladyship  had  retorted,  as  though 
the  admission  were  dragged  from  her. 

' '  I  shall  do  myself  the  pleasure  of  calling, ' '  he  said. 

This  as  he  saw  them  to  their  carriage.  Alicia  had 
not  vouchsafed  him  a  glance.  She  would  not  see  the 
hand  he  held  to  her.  His  heart  smote  him  for  her 
white,  dejected  face. 

' '  Forget  it, ' '  he  whispered.  ' '  I  shall  never  think  of 
it  again. ' ' 

But  she  kept  her  face  averted.  It  may  be  her  regret 
was  other  than  that  he  supposed. 

Now,  as  he  drove  home,  ways  and  means  began  to 
assail  him.  The  glow  and  exaltation  of  passion  passed. 
He  had  Lord  Windermere  to  settle  with  next  day.  He 
did  not  need  to  remind  himself  of  the  absolute  inade- 
quacy of  his  means. 

"For  goodness  sake  put  down  the  window,"  his 
mother  broke  out,  irritably.  "It  is  stiflingly  close  to- 
night. ' ' 

He  obeyed  in  silence. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  your  hand?" 

He  had  tied  his  handkerchief  about  it.  He  with- 
drew it  into  the  shade. 

"Nothing;  a  mere  scratch. " 

"Some  slatternly  girl  with  a  pin  in  her  waistband. 
They  ought  to  be  fined  or  whipped, ' '  she  pronounced, 
wrathfully. 

"Congratulate  me,"  he  said,  when  Millicent  had 
gone  to  her  room. 

Lady  Kershaw  almost  dropped  her  fan. 

"Not  Alicia,"  she  burst  out.  "They  told  me  Lud- 
wig  had  proposed. ' ' 

"No,"  he  said;  "I  was  first" 

She  started  up  and  paced  the  floor. 

"Were  you  mad?  were  you  mad?"  she  cried,  angrily. 
"After  her  most  disgraceful  performance." 

"The  thing  is  settled,"  he  said,  quietly. 

"Oh!  I  am  too  angry  to  speak,"  she  protested.     "I 
would  rather  have  seen  you  in  your  grave. ' ' 
6 


82  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

She  gathered  up  her  cloak  and  gloves,  and  marched 
upstairs.  She  knocked  at  Millicent's  door.  After  a 
minute  it  was  opened.  The  room  was  but  dimly 
lighted.  The  lamp  had  been  moved  to  a  far  corner. 
Millicent  took  her  hands,  and  drew  her  silently  in. 
She  set  a  chair  for  her  before  the  fire ;  then  she  sat 
down,  with  her  face  in  shadow. 

"He  is  a  fool — a  madman!"  Lady  Kershaw  insisted. 
"You  will  never  believe  it.  It  is  inexplicable.  And 
how  could  she  have  consented?" 

'  'Perhaps  she  cares  for  him. ' ' 

The   elder  woman  faced  round  on  her. 

"How  did  you  know?     Who  told  you?" 

'  'Oh,  I — I  knew, ' '  the  girl  said,  in  a  low  voice. 

The  other  was  silent  for  some  minutes.  Then  she 
broke  out  again,  angrily: 

"And  after  her  brazen  shamelessiiess  to-night — 
everybody  was  talking  of  it — how  could  he?  Is  all  his 
poetry  mere  sentiment?  Is  this  creature  with  the  mind 
of  a — ?  Is  this  the  ideal  woman  of  his  books?  Oh,  I 
have  no  patience — I  have  not  patience  to  think  about 
it." 

She  felt  a  hand  steal  into  hers — a  hand  which  was 
cold  and  trembling. 

"He  will  make  her  a  good  woman,"  the  girl  whis- 
pered, hoarsely.  "He  will  teach  her  better  things. " 

She  was  silent  for  a  longer  interval — silent  and 
seething.  Then  she  said  more  quietly: 

"The  women  of  our  house  have  been  so  different. 
She  will  bring  disgrace  upon  us. ' ' 

"No,  no!"  the  other  voice  thrilled;  "he  will  make 
her  a  good  woman." 

Lady  Kershaw  warmed  the  chilled,  shivering  hands 
in  hers.  Poor  little  Pluto !  The  girl  in  her  trouble 
made  the  nickname  he  had  given  her  pathetically 
cruel. 

"I  had  hoped  for  something  different,"  she  said, 
gently. 

"He  would  never  have  cared  for  anybody  else," 
was  urged  so  hastily  that  a  sob  came  out  with  it.  She 
coughed  to  cover  it.  The  hand  in  Lady  Kershaw' s 


WON.  83 

grew  suddenly  hot.  "He  could  never  have  cared  for 
anybody  less  beautiful  and  clever,"  she  continued, 
talking  very  rapidly.  "And  they  look  so — so  fine 
together,"  she  concluded. 

"He  is  a  fool,"  his  mother  pronounced,  with  an 
accession  of  fresh  anger.  "Her  looks  will  give  him 
trouble  enough  before  he  has  finished  with  her.  And 
it  is  so  preposterous, "  she  went  on,  "so  absolutely  im- 
possible. His  whole  income  would  not  provide  her 
with  pin-money. ' ' 

The  girl  drew  her  chair  shyly  toward  the  other. 
There  was  a  sudden  awkward  hesitation  in  her  voice 
and  manner.  Her  hand  tightened  timidly  on  Lady 
Kershaw's. 

"That  could — that  could  be  managed,"  she  said, 
slowly. 

' '  Managed !  It  is  just  the  thing  that  cannot  be  man- 
aged. Her  father  would  not  give  her  a  penny — even 
if  he  were  not,  as  he  is,  up  to  the  ears  in  debt.  Of 
course  he  will  set  his  face  against  the  whole  thing. 
There'll  be  a  pretty  business.  I  should  have  some 
hope,  only  that  Richard  is  like  iron  when  he  makes  his 
mind  up." 

Millicent  sat  fidgeting,  drawing  a  fringe  of  the  man- 
tel-cover rapidly  through  her  fingers.  Then  she  said: 

"But  if  somebody  liked — Alicia,  Lady  Kershaw,  and 
wanted  to  see  her  happy;  liked  Major  Kershaw,  too, 
and  wanted  to  see  them  both  happy,  she  might — she 
might  give  them  money.  She  might  have  more  money 
than  she  wanted  for  herself." 

"I  suppose  you  mean  Lady  Windermere.  You  don't 
know  her,  my  dear.  She  is  the  last  woman  in  the 
world  to  do  anything  of  the  kind,  even  if  she  had  a 
penny  to  bless  herself  with." 

"I  did  not  mean  Lady  Windermere.  I  meant — any- 
body— somebody  who  hadn't  anything  particular  to  do 
with  her  money,  and  wanted  some  way  of  spending  it, 
and  would  feel  proud  and  happy  to  be  able — " 

The  sentence  remained  unfinished. 

Lady  Kershaw  glanced  with  sudden  keenness  at 
the  face  turned  resolutely  from  her.  In  the  dim  light 


84  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

she  could  see  quivering  lips  and  a  dragged  cheek. 
She  heard  her  swallow  that  which  choked  her  voice. 
She  got  up  hastily.  She  laid  her  two  hands  gently  on 
the  girl's  shoulders.  She  laughed  lightly. 

"It  isn't  the  age  of  fairy  godmothers,  dear,"  she 
said.  She  stooped  and  kissed  her.  "And  a  man  could 
not  take  money  from  such  a  dear,  generous  friend," 
she  added,  with  a  tremble  in  her  voice.  "Good-night. " 

She  kissed  her  again.     "My  dear  girl,  sleep  well." 

She  went  softly  from  the  room.  Outside  she  wiped 
her  cheek,  but  the  tears  she  wiped  away  were  not  all 
hers. 

"Oh,  Dick,  "she  apostrophized  him  as  she  passed  his 
door,  "that  your  practical  mother  should  have  lived  to 
have  a  rhymster  and  a  fool  for  son!" 


THE  EARL  OF  WINDERMERE.         85 


CHAPTER  XII. 
THE  EARL  OF  WINDERMERE. 

" If  it  be  now,  'tis  not  to  come;  if  it  be  not  to  come,  it  will  be 
now;  if  it  be  not  now,  yet  it  will  come:  the  readiness  is  all." 

"If  you  ask  me  what  1  think  of  you,  I  say  you  are 
an  impudent  scoundrel,  sir, ' '  Lord  Windermere  thun- 
dered. ' '  By  your  own  confession,  you  have  little  more 
than  a  beggarly  thousand  a  year,  your  house  is  a  tum- 
ble-down pig-stye,  you  have  scarcely  a  rood  of  land 
that  isn't  let  to  some  boor  for  grazing,  and  you  come  to 
me  prating  about  marrying  my  daughter. ' ' 

Kershaw  bowed. 

"It  is  a  colored  version  of  the  facts,"  he  said.  "Sub- 
stantially it  is  true. ' ' 

"You  have  the  impudence  to  own  it." 

Kershaw's  color  rose. 

"It  is  ridiculous  to  speak  of  impudence,"  he  said. 
"My  family  is  as  good  as  yours.  I  am  poor,  I  admit." 

"And  admitting  it,  answer  your  damned  preposter- 
ous question.  Once  for  all,  sir,  you  shall  not  marry 
my  daughter  Alicia.  Good-morning. ' ' 

"I  am  sorry  to  differ  with  you  on  a  question  with 
which  you  have  a  right  to  consideration,  Lord  Win- 
dermere, but  I  must  tell  you  I  have  your  daughter's 
consent,  and  your  daughter  is  of  an  age  to  choose  for 
herself. ' ' 

Lord  Windermere  scoffed.  "Her  consent!  The 
consent  of  a  silly  fool  in  a  weak  moment.  You  forced 
it  from  her.  She  admits  you  did.  You  took  advan- 
tage of  her  in  some  hysterical  frenzy  or  another.  She 
had  every  intention  of  accepting  Ludwig. " 

He  suddenly  lost  control. 

"Curse  you!"  he  vociferated.  "Do  you  know  what 
you  did?  Ludwig,  instead  of  proposing  last  night  to 
my  daughter  as  he  intended,  proposed  to,  and  was 


86  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

accepted  by  Miss  Vaux — Miss  Vaux,"  he  raved,  "a 
red-haired  chit  of  a  creature  he  had  never  looked  twice 
at."  He  laughed  apoplectically.  "Miss  Vaux  to  cut 
out  my  daughter — the  handsomest  girl  in  the  county. 
What  have  you  to  say  to  that,  sir?" 

"I  have  to  say  that  poor  little  Ena  Vaux  is  greatly 
to  be  pitied. " 

Windermere  was  beside  himself.  "Pitied?"  he 
shrieked,  "pitied,  to  be  a  princess  with  over  fifty  thou- 
sand pounds  a  year?  Rot,  sir;  rot,  sir.  Rot!" 

He  flung  the  words  as  though  they  had  been  missiles. 

"You  must  know  Lud wig's  character,"  Kershaw 
said,  loudly.  He  was  compelled  to  speak  loudly  if  he 
intended  to  be  heard.  The  earl  was  blustering  up  and 
down  the  great  room  like  a  windmill. 

"Character!"  he  roared.  "Are  you  a  driveling 
idiot?  What  in  hell's  name  does  a  man's  character 
matter?  He  ain't  a  school-girl.  I  say  rot,  sir;  rot, 
sir.  Rot!" 

He  stamped  about — his  face  purple,  his  eyeballs 
starting.  He  had  been  drinking  considerably.  Ker- 
shaw feared  lest  he  might  have  a  fit. 

"Lord  Windermere,"  he  said,  peaceably,  "what  is 
done  is  done.  I  do  not  pretend  to  be  a  match  for  your 
daughter  from  a  worldly  standpoint — ' ' 

"Damn  me,  I  should  think  not!"  his  lordship 
ejaculated,  "nor  from  any  other  standpoint  out  of  a 
novelette. ' ' 

"But,"  the  major  persisted,  "it  is  no  longer  a  ques- 
tion of  whether  I  am  to  marry  your  daughter,  but  am 
I  to  marry  her  with  your  consent?" 

"You  shan't  marry  her  at  all — that  you  may  take 
your  oath  of!"  his  lordship  cried,  in  such  a  voice  that 
the  dog  on  the  hearth  tumbled  up  and  ran  forward 
snarling. 

Kershaw  waited  two  minutes  while  the  other  tramped 
his  rage  out.  He  had  himself  admirably  under  control. 

Then  he  said  firmly,  "I  mean  to  marry  your  daugh- 
ter. She  has  promised  me.  I  will  do  my  best  to  make 
up  to  her  for  what  she  loses.  But  marry  her  I  will. 
I  would  rather  marry  her  with  your  consent. ' ' 


THE  EARL  OF  WINDERMERE.  87 

The  earl  made  two  violent  strides  across  the  room. 
He  caught  the  major's  arm  with  a  fleshy  impotent 
hand.  Kershaw  did  not  move  a  muscle.  From  his 
greater  height,  he  stood  looking  down  into  the  other's 
swollen  face.  Windermere's  hand  dropped.  He 
loosed  his  grip. 

"I  am  an  old  man,"  he  panted,  hoarsely,  "or  I 
would  thrash  you  within  an  inch  of  your  life!" 

Kershaw  turned  away.  He  could  not  humiliate  her 
father  by  observing  his  abasement. 

' '  I  am  very  sorry  you  are  taking  it  so  hard, ' '  he  said, 
after  a  minute.  "I  can  do  nothing  by  staying  longer." 

"Are  you  still  determined  to  ruin  my  daughter's  life?" 

"My  mind  was  made  up  before  I  came  to  you,  sir. 
I  shall  not  ruin  her  life  as  Ludwig  would  have  done.  ' ' 

"I  shall  forbid  her  to  speak  to  you." 

The  major  bowed.  "Good-morning,"  he  said,  and 
walked  to  the  door. 

"I  will  cane  her.  I  will  shut  her  up  on  bread  and 
water — ' ' 

Kershaw  turned  on  him  fiercely.  "You  cannot — 
you  dare  not.  She  is  your  daughter — " 

"That  is  the  reason.  I  am  her  father.  She  shall 
obey  me,  or  I  swear  it  shall  go  hard  with  her." 

As  Kershaw  strode  down  the  drive,  forging  methods 
and  devices  for  her  in  his  hot  brain,  she  ran  shivering 
to  his  side.  She  wore  no  hat.  Her  hair  was  dishev- 
eled. She  clung  piteously  to  him. 

"Take  me  with  you,"  she  panted.  "I  dare  never 
face  him.  He  vows  he  will  kill  me.  Oh,  why  did  you 
do  it?"  She  broke  into  irritable  weeping. 

He  put  an  arm  about  her.  He  supported  her  trem- 
bling frame. 

"You  are  safe  with  me,"  he  said.  "My  darling, 
come  home  to  my  mother. ' ' 

Walking  up  the  long  beech  avenue,  she,  silent  and 
resentful,  he,  tender  and  comforting,  they  met  the 
Towers  brougham  driven  rapidly  toward  them. 

"By  Jove!"  Kershaw  cried,  "what  can  be  the  mat- 
ter? And  who  would  have  suspected  old  Janey  of  such 
speed!" 


88  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

It  passed  them  without  slackening.  Danvers  the 
coachman  touched  his  hat  respectfully,  at  the  same 
time  shaking  a  foreboding  head. 

As  it  whirled  by,  a  girl's  flushed,  tear-stained  face 
pushed  out,  and  smiled  and  nodded  with  a  pitiful 
attempt  at  bravery. 

"What  can  be  wrong?"  he  said  again. 

Lady  Kershaw  met  them  in  the  hall. 

"Poor  Millicent  has  had  a  telegram,1"  she  said,  con- 
cernedly. ' '  Her  father  died  this  morning,  suddenly. ' ' 


THE  HEIRESS.  89 

CHAPTER   XIII. 
THE  HEIRESS. 

"  Minds  on  this  round  earth  of  ours, 
Very  like  the  leaves  and  flowers, 
Fashioned  after  certain  laws." 

There  was  nobody  but  her  new-found  cousins  to 
whom  Millicent  could  look  for  aid.  The  dead  man 
had  no  relatives  in  England,  and  but  few  friends.  The 
trusteeship  of  his  property  he  left  in  the  hands  of  his 
lawyer,  and  the  rector  of  the  parish  in  which  he  died. 

Poor  Millicent,  expressing  the  forlornness  of  her 
position  in  a  heart-broken  letter  to  the  Towers,  begged 
to  be  allowed  to  return  thither  until  such  time  as  she 
could  make  other  arrangements. 

Kershaw  answered  her  appeal  in  person.  His  own 
affairs  required  his  attention  at  that  moment,  and 
inclination  drew  him  with  the  powerful  magnet  of 
Alicia's  attraction  to  remain  at  home;  but  Millicent 
could  not  be  deserted  in  such  unfriended  straits,  and, 
much  to  Alicia's  chagrin,  for  she  was  accustomed  to 
find  herself  heroine  of  most  situations,  he  did  not  return 
to  Roldermere  until  he  brought  with  him  the  heiress, 
broken-hearted  and  black-veiled.  And,  after  all,  she 
proved  to  be  less  of  an  heiress  than  had  been  antici- 
pated. Mr.  Rivers  had  left  the  great  bulk  of  his  for- 
tune to  carefully-selected  charities.  "To  my  dear  girl, 
Millicent,"  his  will  ran,  "I  leave  only  a  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds,  which,  as  now  invested,  will  bring  her  a 
yearly  income  of  five  thousand  pounds.  I  have  found 
money  no  such  blessing  that  I  should  burden  her  with 
more  than  she  can  comfortably  spend." 

"What  a  lucky  girl  you  are,"  Alicia  remarked,  envi- 
ously. "I  could  cry  with  rage  when  I  contrast  your 
position  with  mine." 

"I  have  not  a  friend  in  the  world,"  the  heiress  said, 
forlornly. 


90  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"I  should  like  to  know  who  has!"  retorted  Beauty. 

She  was  chewing  the  bitter  cud  of  bitterest  remorse. 
She  had  lost  everything  to  which  her  life  had  aimed ; 
she  was  irrevocably  compromised.  Ludwig's  engage- 
ment to  Miss  Vaux  was  known  throughout  the  county. 
She  had  no  alternative  than  to  marry  Kershaw,  and 
marrying  Kershaw  involved  that  which  had  been  the 
bugbear  of  her  existence  so  long  as  she  could  remem- 
ber— poverty.  But  Alicia  knew  better  than  to  publish 
her  mortification.  She  preserved  a  smiling  counte- 
nance, and  played  her  role  of  heroine  to  perfection. 
Only  to  Millicent  did  she  confess  the  truth,  and  poor 
Millicent,  in  these  days,  was  no  very  sympathetic  lis- 
tener. 

From  the  hour  she  left  her  home,  her  people  cast 
her  off.  Lord  Windermere  returned,  unopened,  sun- 
dry letters  Kershaw  addressed  to  him,  as  Lady  Win 
dermere  returned,  unread,  Alicia's  missives.  Trunks 
containing  her  clothes,  and  other  personal  belongings, 
arrived  some  two  weeks  subsequent  to  her  departure. 
She  sat  beside  them,  dropping  tears  of  rage  and  depri- 
vation. 

"They  have  kept  my  prettiest  frocks!"  she  cried, 
"and  my  furs  and  sable  cape!  It  is  that  little  thief 
Marie  has  done  it ;  she  would  have  orders  to  pack 
them,  and  has  stolen  my  smartest  things. ' ' 

To  make  sure  that  her  mother  was  acquainted  with 
the  theft,  she  telegraphed  her  protest,  and  demanded 
the  missing  treasures.  But  they  were  not  forthcom- 
ing, whereupon  she  wailed  again. 

"It  is  mother  herself,"  she  stormed,  "she  always 
wanted  my  sable  cape,  and  all  my  nicest  clothes!" 

"I  think  you  have  heaps  of  things,"  Millicent 
returned,  contemptuously,  glancing  over  the  rich  con- 
tents of  the  great  trunks  standing  open.  "I  don't 
know  how  you  can  bother  about  trifles  like  that  at  such 
a  time." 

"I  could  have  gone  away  in  the  sable  cape,  it  is 
nearly  new,  and  suited  me  better  than  anything  I  have ; 
I'm  not  likely  to  get  another  or  anything  decent  to 


THE  HEIRESS.  91 

wear  when  these  are  ragged  out,  as  they  soon  will  be ; 
they're  none  of  them  new." 

"I  will  give  you  a  sable  cape  for  a  wedding  pres- 
ent," Millicent  consoled  her,  out  of  patience  with  her 
clamorings. 

Alicia  dried  her  eyes. 

"You  dear!"  she  cried,  and  pressed  the  heiress' 
fingers  in  three  of  her  own.  "It  is  well  to  be  you," 
she  continued,  "to  have  your  money  in  your  own  right, 
though  I  think  your  father  might  have  done  better  for 
you.  Still,  of  course,  you  think  nothing  of  a  hundred 
pounds.  That  cloak  I  had  cost  eighty — it  wasn't  at 
all  the  best  quality ;  but  Waldon  was  always  stingy. ' ' 

"Did  Lord  Waldon  give  it  to  you?" 

Alicia  dropped  the  fringes  of  her  lovely  eyes. 

"Do  you  think  father  would?"  she  retorted,  con- 
temptuously; "  and  why  should  I  play  in  his  stupid  old 
tableaux  for  nothing?  It  was  a  sickening  fag,  with 
rehearsals  and  all  kinds  of  bothers.  Besides,  I  had  to 
buy  my  dress — forty  yards  of  silk!" 

"Four  would  have  done  equally  well,"  Millicent 
commented,  dryly. 

Alicia  laughed.  "Don't  be  strait-laced,"  she  said, 
"it's  abominably  provincial." 

After  a  pause,  she  broke  out  spitefully: 

"I  loathe  mother  having  that  cape.  If  ever  I  meet 
her  in  it,  I  swear  I'll  tear  it  off  her  there  and  then. 
Look  here,  Mill,  give  me  an  ermine  one,  dear,  in  case 
I  do  meet  her  in  the  sable ;  it  would  be  a  pity  to  have 
two  sables,  and  ermine  doesn't  cost  so  very  much 
more.  When  shall  we  go  and  choose  it?  Who  is  that? 
Come  in." 

Millicent' s  maid  had  tapped  at  the  door. 

"Can  I  help  you,  miss?"  she  queried,  with  an  inter- 
ested eye  on  the  trunks ;  she  was  dying  to  overhaul 
their  contents. 

"No,  thank  you,"  her  mistress  returned,  "we  can 
manage." 

"How  detestable  of  you,  Millicent;  you  might  at 
least  be  amiable  enough  to  let  me  have  the  use  of  her 
these  few  weeks.  I  shan't  be  able  to  afford  a  maid 


92  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

out  of  Richard's  money — that's  certain  enough.  See, 
now,  I  can  never  get  these  sleeves  back  into  the  boxes 
without  creasing  them,  and  then  they  won't  be  fit  to 
wear. ' ' 

Millicent  proceeded  to  her  assistance,  to  find  herself 
presently  alone  at  the  task. 

"You  have  such  clever  hands,"  Beauty  said,  yawn- 
ing, and  complacently  regarding  her  own. 

Presently,  "Kershaw  ought  to  have  married  you," 
she  went  on,  "you  would  have  been  just  the  wife  for 
him.  And  you  have  money ;  he  needs  money  horribly. 
It's  nearly  as  ridiculous  for  him  to  marry  me,  as  it  is 
for  me  to  marry  him. ' ' 

"I  have  no  intention  of  marrying,"  Millicent  pro- 
tested out  of  the  capacious  depths  of  a  big  dress- 
basket. 

"Well,  I  had  none  of  marrying  Kershaw,  I  assure 
you. ' ' 

The  other  turned  on  her  savagely. 

"Then  why  did  you  accept  him?"  she  flashed  out. 
"You  know  it  cannot  end  happily." 

Alicia  ground  her  teeth. 

"Oh,  don't  talk  of  it!"  she  cried,  ferociously.  "I 
was  a  fool  for  five  minutes ;  anybody  may  be  a  fool 
for  five  minutes.  He  took  a  mean  advantage.  He 
knew  I  never  had  the  least  intention  of  marrying  him. ' ' 

"It  is  not  too  late  to  get  out  of  it." 

"If  it  were  not,  you  maybe  sure  I  should  have  done 
it  long  ago.  But  you  know  perfectly  well  I  have  no 
choice.  I  am  compromised  before  the  world.  I 
haven't  a  roof  over  me.  I  have  to  be  thankful  for 
this,  which  father  elegantly  terms  a  pig-stye.  And  I 
might  have  been  a  princess,  with  over  fifty  thousand 
a  year. ' ' 

"I  am  sure  I  wish  you  had,"  Millicent  insisted, 
irritably.  Her  heart  was  sore  enough  for  her  own 
troubles.  She  was  wearied  to  death  by  Alicia's  reit- 
erations. 

"No  doubt!" 

The  heiress  turned  a  crimson,  honest  face  on  her. 

"That  isn't  the  reason,"  she  said.   "He  would  never 


THE  HEIRESS.  93 

have  looked  at  me.  And  I  am  a  great  deal  too  miser- 
able over  poor  father  to  be  thinking  about  myself. ' ' 

Alicia  simulated  surprise. 

"Why,  who  said  anything  about  anything?"  she 
queried,  ingenuously.  "I  only  said  'no  doubt.'  But 
I  suppose  you  do  like  him.  You  are  so  very  senti- 
mental."  She  yawned.  "Well,  I  must  say  I  should 
be  a  happy  woman  if  you  were  going  to  tie  yourself 
up  to  him  for  the  rest  of  your  days  instead  of  me.  I 
know  that.  In  heaven's  name,  have  mercy  on  that 
chiffon,  Millicent!  Chiffon  that  isn't  fresh  translates 
itself  into  its  British  'rag';  and  I'm  sure  I  don't  know 
where  I'm  going  to  get  more  from." 

Millicent  sat  up  on  the  floor  where  she  had  been 
kneeling  at  the  trunks. 

"Alicia,"  she  said,  simply,  "you  can't  mean  all  you 
say.  If  you  have  any  heart  at  all,  you  cannot  help 
caring  for  him.  When  you  live  in  the  same  house 
with  him,  when  you  see  him  every  day,  and  come  to 
understand  him — " 

Alicia  broke  out  laughing  in  her  face. 

"Good  Lord!"  she  cried.  "Why,  he'll  bore  me  to 
death.  The  only  way  for  marriage  to  be  tolerable  is 
to  spread  it  over  half-a-dozen  houses,  so  that  one  can 
choose  one's  distance.  The  only  way  to  make  a  hus- 
band tolerable  is  to  keep  him  one  of  an  agreeable 
house-party.  But  a  tete-a-tete  marriage — and  I  don't 
see  how  we're  going  to  afford  anything  else — "  She 
broke  into  charming  laughter. 

Kershaw  would  have  been  beside  himself  to  hear  the 
ringing  ripple  of  it. 

Millicent  sat  staring  at  her,  her  swollen  eyelids 
opened  to  their  widest. 

"I  wonder  how  he  ever  came  to  care  for  you,  '  she 
said,  slowly. 

Alicia's  laughter  ceased. 

^Because  you  promise  me  an  ermine  cape  I  don't  see 
that  it  gives  you  a  right  to  insult  me, ' '  she  protested, 
nettled.  "And  I'm  sure  I  wish  to  heaven  he  had  set 
his  sentimental  fancies  upon  someone  who  would  have 
valued  them. ' ' 


94  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

Shortly  after  Alicia's  installment  at  the  Towers,  Lord 
Tudor  had  an  interview  with  Kershaw. 

"Of  course  you've  got  to  marry  her,"  he  said. 
"Everybody's  talking  about  it." 

"I  want  nothing  better,"  Kershaw  asserted,  dis- 
tantly. 

"I  wish  you  luck,  I'm  sure.  You'll  find  herahand- 
ful." 

Kershaw  declined  to  discuss  the  question. 

"You've  behaved  beastly  shabbily,  you  know, "  con- 
tinued Tudor,  candidly.  "Alicia  was  to  have  married 
Ludwig. ' '. 

"It  would  have  been  a  scandal. " 

Her  brother  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"It  would  have  suited  her,"  he  said.  "You've  got 
cursed  topsy-turvy  notions,  Kershaw.  Alicia  will 
help  you  to  straighten  'em  out,  I  reckon.  She  ain't 
altogether  what  she  looks.  But  I  advise  you  to  give 
her  a  pretty  free  rein.  Take  things  easy,  and  you 
may  rub  along.  But  she's  apt  to  turn  skittish ;  and  if 
she  turns  skittish,  she'll  maybe  bolt  and  land  the  whole 
concern  in  the  divorce  court. ' ' 

Kershaw  stood  stiff  with  rage. 

"Leave  me  to  manage  my  affairs,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  by  all  means,"  his  brother-in-law  elect 
assented.  "Only,  as  you've  chosen  to  take  on  one  of 
ours,  and  that  not  the  easiest,  I  thought  I  might  give 
you  a  bit  of  advice.  Ta-ta,  old  chap.  Wish  you  joy, 
I'm  sure.  Just  off  to  town.  Guv.  not  easy  to  get  on 
with  just  at  present.  Ludwig's  sent  in  his  little  bill. 
Ta-ta;  love  to  'Licia. " 

"Awful  rough  on  the  Windermeres, "  Vaux  confided 
to  Millicent,  when  he  came  upon  her  riding  some  four 
or  five  weeks  after  the  event.  It  was  the  first  day 
since  her  father's  death  that  she  had  had  heart  enough 
for  riding.  After  some  conventional  words  of  condo- 
lence, he  had  got  upon  the  subject  of  Alicia  and  Ker- 
shaw. ' '  Everybody  thinks  Kershaw  has  behaved  badly 
you  know.  Nobody  would  have  thought  it  of  him. 
When  a  chap  writes  poetry  about  high  things  and  that, 


THE  HEIRESS.  95 

you  naturally  expect  him  to  behave  better  than  other 
people." 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  objected  Millicent, 
up  in  arms  at  once.  "He  cares  for  Alicia  immensely, 
and  he  asked  her  to  marry  him. ' ' 

"That's  where  he  did  shabbily,  because  you  see  he 
can't  begin  to  keep  her.  As  Lady  Windermere  says, 
she'll  have  to  do  the  cookin' ;  and  fancy  Alicia  havin' 
to  do  the  cookin' . ' ' 

"Lady  Kershaw  does  not  do  the  cookin,"  his  com- 
panion objected.  "And  Alicia  ought  to  be  very 
happy. ' ' 

"Alicia  will,  no  doubt.  She  always  manages  to  fall 
on  those  pretty  feet  of  hers.  But  for  all  Kershaw  will 
have  to  do  with  it,  it'll  be  in  broken  boots." 

"Is  nearly  two  thousand  a  year  so  little  to  live  on?" 
Millicent  questioned.  "I'm  sure  everything  at  the 
Towers  is  very  nice. ' ' 

"But  when  you  have  been  used  to — hum —  Alicia's 
been  used  to  so  much,  you  see.  Why,  she'd  spend  all 
that  in  frocks,  or  more. ' ' 

"She  won't  have  the  chance.  And  I  don't  think  she 
is  at  all  to  be  pitied." 

Vaux  was  taken  with  an  ugly  minute.  The  heiress' 
lips  had  not  tightened,  but  the  heiress'  cheek  wore 
a  suspicious  bloom. 

"Oh,  he  ain't  a  bad  sort  o'  chap,  Kershaw  ain't. 
He's  got  notions,  and  he's  too  serious  for  some  folk's 
taste.  But  I  can't  say  he's  shown  up  well  in  this  affair. 
He's  known  Alicia  all  her  life,  and  might  have  had  a 
little  consideration  for  her,  instead  of  wreckin'  her 
career,  as  he  is  doin'." 

"I  daresay  she  will  be  very  happy." 

"And  I  daresay  she  won't.  It  isn't  Alicia's  form  to 
settle  down  and  be  happy,  as  you  say,  with  a  baby 
every  year — ' ' 

' '  I  never  mentioned  babies, ' '  Millicent  contradicted, 
hotly ;  "  I  never  thought  of  such  a  thing. ' ' 

Vaux  laughed.  The  clock  struck  the  hour,  and  his 
spectre  vanished. 

"Why,  of  course  you  didn't.     You're  awfully  proper 


96  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

for  a  woman,  Miss  Millicent.  You  actually  blush  on 
occasions,  and  that's  a  tremendous  feat  in  these  days. 
And  so  you  believe  Alicia  will  console  herself  with 
Kershaw's  good  looks  for  the  loss  of  a  prince?  Per- 
haps Kershaw  will  lose  his  looks  when  it  conies  to 
livin'  on  mutton  bones  and  bacon." 

"I  don't  think  it  is — "  She  hesitated  for  a  word. 
"Good  form,"  suggested  itself,  but  it  had  come  to  her 
that  good  form  and  good  taste  were  terms,  not  neces- 
sarily synonymous.  Moreover,  who  was  she  that  she 
should  instruct  a  baron's  son  in  the  thing  called  form? 
She  substituted  "nice."  "I  don't  think  it  is  nice  to 
talk  about  people's  private  affairs,  Mr.  Vaux. " 

He  laughed.  The  heiress  was  a  good  little  soul. 
One  might  be  very  happy  with  her.  After  all,  it  was 
only  a  hundred  thousand  she  had,  but  her  lips  did  not 
tighten.  It  occurred  to  him  all  at  once  that  he  was 
growing  fond  of  her. 

" Careful  at  that  fence,"  he  called;  "it's  a  nasty  one." 

She  caught  her  breath  as  Queenie  rose.  She  sighed 
as  the  mare's  hoofs  came  down  springily  on  the  other 
side.  She  was  thinking  of  that  first  time  she  had 
taken  this  same  nasty  fence,  with  Alicia  and  the  prince 
ahead,  and  Kershaw  thundering  after  her.  How 
things  had  changed  since  then!  She  sobered  sud- 
denly, remembering  her  dead,  kind  father.  How 
proud  he  had  been  to  hear  of  her  hunting  in  company 
with  a  prince. 

When  Vaux  caught  up  with  her,  she  had  reined  in 
the  mare,  and  stood  waiting  for  him.  Her  face  was 
pale ;  her  lips  trembled  a  little. 

"Mr.  Vaux,"  she  said,  seriously,  "you  know  I  am 
not  a  lady — ' ' 

He  bent  his  head  in  protest. 

"Miss  Rivers,"  he  returned,  respectfully,  "I  know 
nothing  of  the  kind. ' ' 

"I  think  you  must,"  she  went  on,  simply.  "Every- 
body knows  my — father  made — furniture  polish. ' '  She 
lost  her  voice  a  moment.  Recovering  it,  she  contin- 
ued, "I  used  to  be  ashamed  of  it.  I  am  not  any 
longer.  Do  you  know  why?" 


THE  HEIRESS.  97 

He  was  nonplussed.     He  sought  about  for  reasons. 

"Because  he  made  such  a  rippin'  pot  o'  money  out 
of  it, ' '  he  submitted,  soberly.  « 

She  shook  her  head.     Her  lip  still  trembled. 

"No,  because  I  thought  swells  like  L'ord  Winder- 
mere  and  people  with  titles  and  old  families  had  finer 
thoughts  and  higher  purposes  than  people  who  had 
been  in  trade  all  their  lives.  I  thought,  because  you 
had  nothing  else  to  do,  you  would  cultivate  honor  and 
truth  and  fine  feeling;  because  you  had  not  to  spend 
your  time  in  counting-houses,  that  you  would  care  less 
for  money  and  sordid  things.  Now  I  know  differently. 
I  suppose  it's  because  God  meant  men  to  work,  that  \ 
work  makes  better  men  of  them.  Because  it  does. 
Since  I've  known  something  of — of  a  different  class, 
I've  learned  to  appreciate  my  own. " 

She  jerked  the  rein,  and  urging  Queenie  forward, 
cantered  off  impetuously. 

"Miss  Rivers,"  he  called,  plunging  after  her — "I 
say,  what  a  fine  honest  little  ripper  she  is — Miss  Riv- 
ers, I  say,  you're  too  hard  on  us.  'Pon  honor,  we're 
not  all  like  the  Dovercourts. ' ' 

He  followed  the  outline  of  her  resolute  head  and 
crimson  cheek. 

"There's  Waldon,"  he  protested,  pursuing  her  with 
argument  and  steed,  "ain't  a  bit  close;  spends 
money  like  water ;  tableaux  the  other  night  must  have 
cost  him  a  whole  pot.  And,  honestly,  there's  other 
chaps,  too,  not  a  bit  like  you  say — not  rich  perhaps,  so 
bound  to  think  o'  ways  and  means,  you  know;  but  not 
bad  chaps  at  heart.  I  swear  they're  not." 

She  still  turned  resolutely  from  him,  flying  over  the 
turf.  His  voice  came  after  her  to  the  rhythmic  pound 
of  eight  horse-hoofs. 

"There's  Kershaw,  for  instance,"  he  protested,  at 
his  wits'  end  for  examples.  "You  can't  say  he  ain't 
a  fine  chap,  and  he's  one  of  us." 

This  time  she  spoke. 

"Major  Kershaw  works,"  she  called  back. 

"Yes,  but  he  don't  make  boot-black,  or  mustard,  or 


98  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

any  o'  those  things  you  seem  to  think  make  chaps  bet- 
ter chaps.  Now,  does  he?" 

He  was  abreast  of  her  by  this  time. 

"No,  he  makes  poetry,"  she  said,  smiling.  But  he 
saw  that  her  cheeks  were  wet.  Somewhere  in  his 
nonchalant  economy  he  experienced  a  strong,  inex- 
plicable sense  of  fierceness,  seeing  that  her  cheeks 
were  wet. 

"Every  chap  hasn't  the  brain  for  it,"  he  protested, 
hotly.  "You  can't  rhyme  if  you  haven't  got  a  brain 
for  rhymin'.  And  'pon  honor,  Miss  Millicent,  I 
wouldn't  a  bit  mind  goin'  in  for  trade  myself  if  there 
was  any  openin'.  I'm  sick  o'  loungin'.  A  chap  gets 
a  sort  o'  dry  rot  in  him  loungin',  all  the  time.  If  you 
happened  to  know  any  old  fellow  who  makes  varnish 
or  any  o'  those  kind  o'  things,  and  wants  a  partner, 
I'm  blest  if  I  wouldn't  just  jump  at  it.  I've  got  a  bit 
o'  capital." 

She  laughed  and  shook  her  head. 

"I  don't  suppose  you  could  add  up  a  row  of  figures." 

"Well,  you're  wrong,  then.  If  I  haven't  got  a  head 
for  figures,  I  haven't  got  a  head  for  anythin'." 

He  dropped  his  voice  so  far  as  was  consistent  with 
the  noise  their  four-footed  deputies  were  making.  "I'd 
do  a  good  deal  to  be  in  your  good  books,"  he  said,  ear- 
nestly. 

She  laughed  again,  and  pushed  ahead. 

' '  Then  you  will  have  to  be  very  sensible  and  matter- 
of-fact,"  she  said. 


GODMOTHER  TO  THE  RESCUE  99 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
GODMOTHER  TO  THE  RESCUE. 

"Who  is  this  that  cometh  up  from  the  wilderness,  leaning  upon 
her  beloved?" 

4 '  Richard,  I  want  to  talk  to  you. ' ' 

"Alicia,  I  am  all  ears." 

"Yes,  but  it  is  most  important.  It  isn't  anything 
ordinary.  We  must  not  be  interrupted.  It  is  an 
amazing,  marvelous  piece  of  news. ' ' 

"It  must  be  to  make  you  use  adjectives,  dear.  Come 
to  the  library." 

He  led  the  way.  She  followed  him,  with  speculative 
eyes  on  the  back  of  his  head,  a  little  anxious  tension 
about  her  mouth. 

But  when  he  turned  to  close  the  door  after  her,  it 
was  a  smiling,  cloudless  face  which  confronted  him. 
She  stood  with  her  hands  behind  her,  beaming  pro- 
vocatively up  at  him. 

He  stood,  glancing  tenderly  down  upon  her. 

"Why  don't  you  kiss  me?"  she  pouted. 

"See,  now,  I  do." 

' '  You  need  not  be  quite  so  energetic.  You  are  spoil- 
ing my  fringe.  The  curl  isn't  natural,  you  know.  It 
means  an  enormous  amount  of  industry  with  curling 
tongs.  Millicent  sent  her  maid  to  do  it  for  me  this 
morning. ' ' 

"You  will  soon  have  no  maid,"  he  said,  dejectedly, 
scanning  the  pink,  perfect  face  with  its  crown  of  corn- 
hued  curls.  "Do  you  think,"'  he  smiled,  "I  could 
manage  it  for  you  when — " 

"I  am  certain  you  couldn't.  You  would  make  a  per- 
fect guy  of  me.  And  then  we  should  fight.  I'm  quite 
murderous  when  I'm  having  my  hair  dressed.  It 
always  seems  as  though  they  might  have  done  it  bet- 
ter." 


too        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"I  don't  think  they  could,"  he  said.  "There  are 
limits,  you  know,  to  human  possibility. ' ' 

She  did  not  hear  what  he  said,  but  she  laughed 
deliciously  toward  him.  She  was  wondering  how  she 
should  begin.  She  dropped  her  lids. 

"I  shall  be  able  to  have  a  maid,"  she  said,  softly. 

"Why,  certainly,  if  you  wish,  but  you  know  it 
means  going  without  something  else." 

He  glanced  round  the  room.  He  underwent  a 
momentary  struggle.  He  would  put  away  the  pipes. 
Men  were  mere  creatures  of  habit.  If  the  pipes  were 
locked  away  in  some  remote  corner  or  another,  and 
there  were  no  tobacco,  it  would  be  easy  enough  to 
break  the  habit.  And  after  all  Alicia  would  be  there. 
He  could  not  restrain  a  sigh  even  though  Alicia  would 
be  there.  For,  as  he  had  reflected,  men  are  creatures 
of  habit — and  to  smoke  tobacco  has  become  their  sec- 
ond nature ! 

"It  is  about  that  I  wanted  to  talk  to  you,  Richard." 

He  brought  his  mind  back.  "About — about  tobac- 
co?" 

"Tobacco,  you  dear  old  stupid!  Who  said  anything 
about  tobacco?  No,  about  the  maid,  and  about  heaps 
of  other  things  I  shall  want. ' ' 

He  thought  of  his  banking  account  and  did  not  look 
particularly  cheerful. 

1 '  Oh,  it  is  such  delicious  news  I  have  to  tell  you. ' ' 

"Where  will  you  sit?" 

"I  won't  sit,  I  will  stand." 

"Where  shall  I  sit?" 

"You  won't  sit  either;  you  will  stand." 

"Where,  dear?" 

"Here,  dear." 

"And  you?" 

"Where  I  am." 

She  swept  his  face  with  guileful  laughing  eyes. 

"My  head  is  so  crammed  full  with  plans,  I  can 
scarcely  support  it." 

"There,  now,  how  does  that  do?" 

"Tolerably!     Now  turn  your  eyes  away,  because  I 


GODMOTHER  TO  THE  RESCUE.  IOI 

am  thinking,  and  when  I  think  my  face  gets  creased 
with  hideous  wrinkles." 

She  laid  her  bent  arm  against  his  chest,  and  set  her 
face  into  the  crook  of  her  sleeved  elbow,  hiding  from 
him  all  of  her  features  but  the  eyes,  which  rested  lim- 
pidly  on  his. 

She  swept  her  ringers  to  and  fro  his  throat  with  soft 
mesmeric  touch. 

"You  must  not  ask  questions, "  she  said.  "I  cannot 
do  business  if  I  am  interrupted.  It  bothers  my  head 
so.  Now  are  you  all  silence  and  attention?" 

He  nodded,  smiling. 

' '  I  said  you  were  not  to  look  at  me.  Already  I  can 
feel  the  most  hideous  wrinkles  forming  round  my  eye- 
brows. That  is  right.  Look  out  of  the  window.  Don't 
start!  What  should  you  say" — the  hand  played  softly 
over  his  throat,  up  and  down  a  virile  ridge  of  muscle 
— "what  should  you  say,  dear,  if  I  had  grown  sud- 
denly rich?" 

"Has  my  darling  come  to  know  how  much  I  love 
her?"  he  suggested,  dreamily. 

His  eyes  were  dutifully  turned  away,  so  that  he  did 
not  perceive  a  momentary  gleam  of  scorn  which  sup- 
planted the  limpid  glance.  And  her  arm  bent  against 
him  was  over  the  curl  of  her  lip. 

' '  I  was  speaking  of  money, ' '  she  said. 

His  expression  changed. 

"Has  your  father  relented?" 

She  lifted  a  finger  and  laid  it  softly  over  his  lips. 

"There  were  to  be  no  questions,"  she  insisted. 

He  kissed  the  finger.  "Very  well.  But  tell  me, 
dear.  I  must  know  all  about  it.  Your  happiness  is 
concerned." 

"You  are  not  resting  my  head  comfortably.  There 
are  some  horrid  bones  that  run  into  my  cheek. ' '  She 
moved  her  face  petulantly. 

"I  don't  think  they  are  bones,"  he  smiled.  "It 
may  be  a  pocketbook.  If  it  is,  I  doiibt  there  being 
anything  substantial  enough  in  it  to  bother  you. ' ' 

"Now  I  am  comfortable.  Turn  your  eyes  from  my 
hideous  business  wrinkles  again  and  listen.  Father 


102  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

has  not  relented.  Nor  is  he  likely  to  relent.  But  my 
godmother — Lady  Sarah  Biddulph,  has  written  this 
morning  to  say  she  will  allow  me  five  thousand  a  year. ' ' 

"Nonsense!"  he  said. 

"It  isn't  nonsense  at  all,"  she  insisted.  "It  is  as 
true  as  truth." 

4 '  You  are  fooling  me,  Alicia.  How  could  you  think 
I  should  believe  such  nonsense?"  he  said,  impa- 
tiently. 

' '  You  can  believe  it  or  not, ' '  she  returned,  petulantly. 
"I  tell  you  it  is  perfectly  true.  She  has  heaps  and 
heaps  of  money,  and  she  promises  to  allow  me  a  reg- 
ular income  of  five  thousand  a  year." 

"Is  she  mad?"  he  demanded,  "or  are  you?"  He 
held  her  at  arm's  length  examining  her  face.  "Or 
am  1?" 

She  struggled  back  to  him,  hiding  her  face  in  her 
arm  again. 

"You  shall  not  stare  at  me  when  I  have  a  hideous 
business  face  on,"  she  complained,  peevishly.  "And 
we  are  none  of  us  mad.  Unless  she  is  a  little.  She 
was  always  eccentric. ' ' 

"Alicia,  it  is  incredible — impossible.  Such  things 
don't  happen.  People  don't  give  other  people  for- 
tunes. She  must  be  making  fun  of  you.  You  must 
be  making  a  mistake.  Show  me  the  letter,  dear.  At 
all  events  it  must  be  five  hundred. ' ' 

"It  isn't  five  hundred.  Do  you  think  I  can't  read 
figures?  There  were  three  noughts." 

"Show  me  the  letter.  How  can  you  expect  me  to 
believe  such  a  story?" 

"I  left  it  upstairs.  What  does  it  matter  about  the 
letter?  I  have  told  you  all  there  is  in  it  that  concerns 
you.  Perhaps  you  will  believe  this?" 

She  took  an  envelope  from  her  pocket.  From  it  she 
unfolded  notes  to  the  value  of  one  thousand  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  pounds.  She  spread  them  before  him 
on  the  table,  counting  them  with  sparkling  eyes.  "It 
is  my  first  quarter's  installment,"  she  said. 

He  was  staggered.  They  were  evidence  in  truth 
of  that  she  said,  evidence  substantial  and  welcome. 


GODMOTHER  TO  THE  RESCUE.  103 

He  counted  the  notes  after  her.  He  examined  them 
as  if  doubting  their  genuineness. 

"There  is  no  mistake  about  it,"  he  said,  overcome. 
' '  You  will  be  able  to  have  all  you  want. ' ' 

"Isn't  she  a  dear?"  Alicia  cried,  enthusiastically. 
"She  was  always  very  fond  of  me,  you  know." 

"Grand  old  lady!"  he  pronounced.  "Magnificent 
old  person !  This  is  a  godmother  indeed.  Alicia,  we 
will  go  right  off  and  thank  her  properly. ' ' 

"How stupid  you  are,"  she  said,  impatiently.  "She 
is  abroad,  Richard.  She  lives  abroad  for  her  health. ' ' 

"We  will  pay  her  a  honeymoon  visit,  dearest.  It  is 
the  least  we  can  do." 

The  caressing  hand  altered  its  motion.  It  drummed 
with  undeniable  irritability  upon  his  chest.  Then  she 
said  slowly.  "She  is  just  going  on  to  Russia  or  India 
or  somewhere.  And  she  loathes  people.  She  is  as 
cross  as  two  sticks.  A  nice  honeymoon  indeed  for  me, 
Richard,  to  spend  it  with  her. ' ' 

He  scarcely  listened.  It  was  so  incredible.  Here 
was  escape  indeed  from  all  their  difficulties. 

"Five  thousand  a  year!  Why,  Alicia,  it  is  a  perfect 
godsend.  A  maid!  I  should  think  you  can  have  a 
maid.  A  couple  of  hunters,  and  a  pair  for  your  vic- 
toria. Why,  you  won't  feel  yourself  a  poor  man's 
wife  at  all.  God  bless  the  old  lady,  I  say.  I  scarcely 
knew  which  way  to  turn,  trying  to  manage  for 
you. ' ' 

He  was  almost  beside  himself.  Alicia's  face  against 
his  breast  rose  and  fell  to  his  agitation.  He  stooped 
and  kissed  her. 

"I  should  think  it  is  astounding  news,"  he  said. 

Alicia  was  cooler.  "I  suppose  we  can  manage  very 
well  on  it,"  she  submitted. 

"I  never  knew  the  old  lady  cared  so  much  about 
you,  dear.  I  remember  you  told  me  she  had  been 
rather  stingy  since  the  christening  cup.  And  I  did 
not  understand  she  was  rich. " 

"She  is  a  miser,"  Alicia  said.  "She  has  been  hoard- 
ing for  years." 

"She  knows  you  are  to  marry  me?" 


104  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Of  course.  She  knows  all  about  it.  She  thinks  it 
is  romantic.  She's  romantic  herself." 

"Did  you  write?" 

"Oh,  don't  ask  questions.  Don't  bother  me,  Richard. 
My  head  aches  with  excitement. ' ' 

"All  right,  dear.  I'm  a  thoughtless  brute.  But 
luck  like  this,  by  Jove,  drives  everything  else  out  of 
one's  head.  You  won't  have  to  go  without  pretty 
frocks  now." 

' '  Frocks  cost  a  good  deal, ' '  she  responded,  practically. 

' '  There  has  some  spending  in  five  thousand. ' ' 

"The  house  has  to  be  kept  up.  We  shall  want  more 
servants,  and  a  coachman,  and  a  groom.  With  your 
two  thousand,"  she  shuddered  in  his  arms.  "Good 
gracious!"  she  exclaimed,  "what  in  heaven's  name 
could  we  have  done  on  two  thousand?  Why,  I  should 
have  had  to  ride  in  omnibuses,  and  travel  second- 
class.  ' ' 

"Would  love  have  flown  out  at  the  window?"  he 
smiled. 

"No,  it  would  have  starved  in  the  house,  because  it 
hadn't  a  decent  frock  to  go  out  in." 

He  drew  her  to  him.  "Ah,  dear,"  he  said,  "for 
nature  and  love  that  could  live  in  a  cottage!" 

"It  does  in  poetry,"  she  retorted,  "but  it  doesn't  do 
anywhere  else.  One' s  gowns  must  fit. ' ' 

After  a  pause — "I  must  have  the  drawing-room 
done  up  for  you,"  he  said.  "What  color  will  you  have 
it?" 

"Oh,  it  is  to  be  pink.     She  has  arranged  all  that." 

"Good  Lord,  Alicia!  We  must  not  take  too  much 
from  the  old  lady.  We  must  be  moderate." 

"It  isn't  the  old  lady  this  time,"  Alicia  said,  slowly. 
Her  eyes  scanned  his  face.  "Millicent  has  promised 
to  doit." 

He  shook  his  head  decisively. 

"I  cannot  allow  that,"  he  said.  "You  know  I  could 
not  have  that. ' ' 

"We  cannot  be  proud,  when  we  are  so  poor,  Richard. 
And  if  Millicent  likes — Millicent  has  such  heaps  of 
money,  and  only  herself  to  spend  it  on. ' ' 


GODMOTHER  TO  THE  RESCUE.  105 

"She's  a  generous  little  girl,  dear,  I  know.  But  I 
cannot  have  her  upholstering  my  house." 

"It  will  be  my  house  too, — soon." 

"Not  sooner  than  I  wish,"  he  said,  in  a  passionate 
parenthesis. 

"But  she  wants  to  do  it.  She  wants  to  do  it  as  a 
wedding-present  to  me." 

"It  can't  be,"  he  said,  conclusively. 

From  behind  the  cover  of  her  puffed  sleeve  she  was 
watching  up  at  him.  There  was  a  shade  of  anxiety 
in  her  face. 

"She  has  more  money  than  she  knows  how  to  spend. " 

He  made  no  reply. 

There  was  silence.  Then  she  said,  suddenly  and 
peevishly : 

"I'm  horribly  tired,  Richard.  Why  do  you  make 
trouble  by  objecting  to  things?  And  my  head  aches 
wretchedly. ' ' 

' '  I  am  sorry. ' '  % 

She  knew  he  did  not  mean  to  yield. 

"It  is  all  ordered,"  she  persisted.  "It  is  to  be  pink 
and  white  and  gold.  We  have  chosen  the  curtains." 

She  began  to  sob  shallowly. 

"There  were  to  have  been  mirrors  painted  with 
apple-blossoms  and  butterflies — ' ' 

"Heavens!  Why  did  you  let  Millicent  choose?  If 
there  is  one  thing  more  hideous  than  another  it  is 
painted  mirrors. ' ' 

"It  wasn't  Millicent's  choice,  it  was  mine.  You 
can  call  it  hideous  if  you  like.  I  am  sure  I  have 
enough  to  worry  me — " 

"There,  dear,  don't  cry.  You  shall  have  your 
painted  mirrors,  and  anything  else  you  want;  though* 
they  won't  suit  the  old  house,  goodness  knows.  But 
what  you  have  I  shall  pay  for." 

"Will  you  have  enough?  I  couldn't  spare  much  for 
the  house  out  of  this  first  installment,  could  I?  We 
must  have  horses  and  carriages." 

"No,"  he  said,  rather  stiffly.  "Keep  your  money. 
You  will  find  plenty  of  ways  of  spending  it. " 

"Oh,  if  you  are  going  to  be  stiff  and  proud — "  she 


106  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

said,  composedly,  putting  her  notes  back  into  their 
envelope. 

"I  cannot  afford  to  be  stiff  and  proud, "  he  returned. 
"I  shall  have  to  let  my  wife  provide  a  number  of 
things  I  ought  to  provide  for  her. ' ' 

"I  suppose  two  thousand  a  year  will  do  very  little," 
she  sighed. 

"I  shall  get  some  hundreds  for  my  new  book." 

She  gave  a  little  exclamation  of  surprise.  '  'Do  you 
make  money  out  of  your  poetry,  Richard?" 

"A  little." 

Her  eyes  brightened. 

"Oh,  you  clever  man!"  she  said.  "Then  it  is  some 
use  after  all. ' ' 

He  looked  down  at  the  ethereal  face,  resting  like  a 
lovely  blossom  on  his  shoulder.  He  stooped  and  kissed 
her  passionately. 

"What  a  charming  tease  it  is,"  he  laughed. 


"RUBBISH."  107 


CHAPTER  XV. 
"RUBBISH!" 

Leave  it  with  God.     But  this  I  have  known 

That  sorrow  is  over  soon ; 
Some  in  dark  nights,  sore  weeping  alone, 

Forget  by  full  of  the  moon. 

"So  I  shall  be  leaving  you,'    Millicent  said. 

"I  suppose  you  will,"  Lady  Kershaw  acquiesced, 
regretfully.  Her  glance  traveled  past  the  girl  to  light 
with  marked  resentment  on  her  son. 

He  was  busily  engaged  at  the  further  end  of  the 
room  on  some  mysterious  and  masculine  business 
relating  to  pipes.  Pipes  to  the  number  of  fifteen, 
various  in  shape  and  size,  were  laid  before  him  on  a 
table.  Cases,  satin-lined,  and  wooden  boxes,  stood 
beside  them.  Every  now  and  again  he  laid  a  pipe 
reverently  in  a  box  or  satin-lined  case  and  closed  it 
with  a  snap. 

The  man  about  to  range  himself  first  ranges  his 
pipes.  Where  before  a  multiplicity  were  needful, 
now  only  a  couple  or  so — just  for  sake  of  change — will 
be  required.  Smoking  will  shortly  be  but  an  incon- 
siderable trifle  in  the  sum  of  happiness.  A  pipe  or 
two  he  will  need,  of  course,  and  some  cogitation  ensues 
as  to  which,  out  of  many,  shall  be  retained.  He 
selects,  it  may  be,  three,  and,  not  without  sighs, 
perhaps,  gives  the  remainder  decent  burial,  banishing 
them  in  their  satin  coffins,  to  some  remote  corner  of 
the  house.  Not  rarely  he  resurrects  them  within  six 
weeks  of  their  interment ! 

So  Kershaw  was  occupied.  Millicent  stood  at  the 
table  in  her  sombre  mourning.  From  an  armful  of 
blossoms  she  had  brought  in  from  the  greenhouse  she 
was  filling  vases 

"I  shall  be  sorry  enough  to  lose  you,"   the  elder 


io8  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

woman  added,  with  another  resentful  look  toward  her 
son.  But  he,  unconscious,  sat  humming  pleasantly 
above  his  pipes.  He  had  lost  all  his  gloom.  There 
was  a  sunny  gleam  about  his  gold  mustache. 

"Millicent  will  stay,  I  hope,"  he  put  in,  "till  Alicia 
and  I  get  home  again.  Do,"  he  added,  turning  to  her ; 
"the  mother  will  be  miserable  those  three  weeks  with- 
out you. ' ' 

The  heiress  bent  absorbed  above  a  Dresden  bowl. 
The  flowers  refused  to  lean  their  blooms  the  way  she 
wished.  She  shook  her  head  firmly. 

"I  should  have  liked  it;  but  it  is  not  possible." 

Above  the  flowers  she  sent  him  one  long  glance. 
He  went  on  humming  cheerfully. 

' '  I  must  have  work  to  do, ' '  she  said  in  a  low  voice. 
"I  am  tired  of  being  idle." 

"Slumming,  I  suppose?"  the  elder  woman  retorted, 
not  without  contempt.  It  occurred  to  her  cynically 
that  the  poor  would  be  badly  off  were  the  course  of 
true  love  always  to  run  smooth. 

Millicent  shook  her  head. 

"I  have  no  talent  for  slumming,"  she  said,  "and 
I  want  definite,  regular  work. ' ' 

"Such  as?" 

The  heiress  put  away  the  bowl  of  lilies,  and,  drawing 
another  to  her,  began  to  fill  it. 

"Teaching,"  she  said. 

Lady  Kershaw  stared,  incredulous. 

"Teaching!"  she  echoed. 

Millicent  waited  while  she  snipped  some  stems  with 
care. 

"Or  hospital  nursing,"  she  added. 

4 '  Rubbish ! ' '  Lady  Kershaw  broke  out  sharply.  She 
was  not  gifted  with  patience,  and  late  events  had 
tried  her  lack  of  it. 

Kershaw  at  the  other  end  of  the  room,  laughed. 

"More  emphatic  than  civil,  mother,"  he  observed. 
' '  I  did  not  hear  what  went  before,  but  I  will  answer 
for  it  Millicent  said  nothing  deserving  such  an  unquali- 
fied snub." 

"Oh,  it  doesn't  matter.     It  doesn't  matter  at  all," 


"RUBBISH."  109 

the  heiress  protested,  hastily.     "Only  Lady  Kershaw 
and  I  were  talking." 

"One  of  us  was  talking  rubbish,"  the  elder  woman 
snapped.  "It  would  be  ridiculous  for  a  girl  of  Mil- 
licent's  character  and  opportunities  to  go  the  way  of 
disappointed  women,  and  fling  her  life  away. " 

"It  is  easy  to  guess  which  one  according  to  you," 
Kershaw  laughed. 

"Why  don't  you  marry  Vaux?" 

Millicent  almost  dropped  the  bowl  of  flowers. 

"Good  gracious!  why  should  I?"  she  exclaimed, 
with  a  rising  color. 

"He  wants  you." 

"I  can  answer  for  that,"  the  major  cried.  "And,  if 
I  may  venture,  I  say  Vaux  is  a  downright  decent  chap. 
He  would  make  a  splendid  husband." 

"Every  woman  does  not  want  a  husband,"  Milli- 
cent said,  quietly. 

Kershaw  stood  up. 

' '  I  am  sorry, ' '  he  apologized.  ' '  I  did  not  mean  to 
be  impertinent." 

There  was  an  awkward  pause.  Millicent  remained 
with  a  perturbed  face. 

"I  will  go  and  meet  Alicia,"  the  major  said.  "She 
expected  to  be  back  early." 

"She  cannot  possibly  be  back  yet,"  his  mother 
objected. 

"Well,  I  have  lots  of  things  to  see  to."  With 
another  apologetic  glance  toward  Millicent,  he  went 
out. 

"Don't  be  cross,  dear  Millicent,"  his  mother  said, 
when  they  were  alone.  '  'I  am  vexed  at  things  lately, 
as  you  know,  and  short  in  the  temper.  For  goodness 
sake,  don't  you  do  anything  foolish.  Vaux  is  a  very 
good  fellow.  He  has  been  rather  wild,  but  has  settled 
down  these  two  years,  and — " 

"If  he  were  the  last  man  in  the  world  I  should  not 
want  to  marry  him,"  the  girl  protested.  "And  why 
must  I  marry  at  all?" 

Lady  Kershaw  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"Everybody  marries,"   she  said.     "Of  course  you 


no  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

will  marry.     You  have  money —    What  did  you  say?" 

"I  hadn't  said  anything.  But  surely  having-  money 
makes  one  independent  of  marriage, ' '  Millicent  said, 
on  the  top  of  an  odd  laugh. 

"The  girl  who  marries,  without  having  money  of 
her  own,  takes  a  great  risk,"  the  elder  woman  pro- 
nounced sententiously. 

There  was  a  pause.     Then  Millicent  said : 

"It  is  unlikely  that  I  shall  marry.  If  I  do  it  will 
not  be  for  very,  very  long.  And  I  want  something  to 
do  in  the  meantime. ' ' 

"Well,  for  my  part,  I  disapprove  of  women  with 
means  doing  any  sort  of  work.  It  makes  people 
expect  to  get  women's  work  for  nothing." 

"I  should  take  a  salary,"  the  heiress  insisted,  diffi- 
dently. "I  want  work  where  I  shall  get  paid.  All 
other  work  is  desultory. ' ' 

"And  take  the  bread  out  of  the  mouth  of  some 
woman  without  a  penny  in  the  world.  I  am  ashamed 
of  you. ' ' 

Millicent  had  finished  her  flowers.  She  sat  down  at 
the  table,  her  head  in  her  hands. 

"Don't  scold  me,"  she  sued,  dejectedly.  "I  do 
what  seems  best  to  me." 

"You  cannot  possibly  have  such  distorted  notions. 
You  are  just  hysterical ;  you  want  a  change.  We  will 
look  you  out  a  nice  house ;  you  can  afford  to  live  hand- 
somely, and  you  are  a  very  lucky,  happily  situated  girl, 
so  let  us  hear  no  more  about  your  turning  nurse  maid 
or  any  such  folly.  Use  what  the  gods  have  given,  and 
be  properly  grateful." 

"It  is  all  arranged,"  the  heiress  said,  diffidently. 
She  laid  a  letter  on  the  table.  ' '  I  answered  an  adver- 
tisement. I  am  to  teach  the  children ;  I  am  fond  of 
children,"  she  added,  rather  forlornly. 

Lady  Kershaw  read  it  through. 

"The  whole  world  seems  to  have  gone  mad,"  she 
protested. 

She  read  it  again. 

"Millicent  Rivers,  with  an  income  of  five  thousand 
a  year,  is  to  take  a  situation  as  governess  to  two 


"RUBBISH."  in 

underbred  brats  at  a  salary  of  thirty-five  pounds.  My 
dear,  had  you  not  better  have  taken  cook's  place?  She 
has — oh,  good  gracious,  girl,  I  am  out  of  all  patience 
with  you ;  I  feel  as  though  it  would  do  me  as  much 
good  as  I  am  sure  it  would  do  you  if  I  were  to  give 
you  a  whipping.  I  don' t  know  what  has  come  to  girls 
of  late.  In  my  day  they  took  what  came,  and  did 
what  their  mothers  told  them ;  now  they  must  be  doc- 
tors and  lawyers  and  policemen.  I  suppose  you  will 
be  wanting  a  latch-key?" 

"Do  people  allow  their  governesses  latch-keys?" 
Millicent  queried,  with  a  curling  lip. 

' '  Do  fiddlesticks  allow  their  fiddlesticks  fiddlesticks !" 
the  elder  woman  snapped,  beside  herself  with  anger. 
"The  notion  of  you  as  a  governess!  Why,  what  are 
you  going  to  do  with  your  Worth  frocks?  What  are 
you  going  to  do  with  your  horses?  What  are  you 
going  to  do  with  your  income?  Millicent,  I  warn  you, 
I  will  have  you  locked  up !  I  am  a  desperate  person 
when  I  am  roused.  I  will  have  you  locked  up  as  a 
lunatic  incapable  of  looking  after  her  affairs." 

Her  knitting  needles  clicked  some  hundreds  to  the 
minute.  Millicent  smiled  whimsically  across  at  her. 

"You  are  turning  that  heel  wrong,"  she  said;  "the 
major  will  never  be  able  to  get  into  it." 

"Chut,  chut!  don't  talk  to  me.  Am  I  your  grand- 
mother that  you  should  teach  me  how  to  turn  heels? 
If  you  had  half  an  eye  you  would  see  it  is  nothing  for 
the  major  I  am  knitting.  Let  Alicia  knit  his  stockings 
for  him  now,  say  I.  If  you  had  half  a  heart  you 
would  see  I  am  knitting  stockings  for  the  wrongest  - 
headed,  stiffest-necked,  most  obstinate  young  person 
in  the  world,  who  does  her  best  to  vex  me  when  I  am 
already  vexed  to  desperation.  Gracious!  how  you 
startle  one!" 

Millicent  was  on  her  knees,  with  her  face  buried  in 
the  elder  woman's  lap,  sobbing  her  heart  out. 

"Are  they  for  me?"  she  cried,  "oh,  are  they  for  me? 
You  are  so  good,  so  kind.  Dear  Lady  Kershaw,  don't 
scold  me.  Oh,  I  cannot  bear  being  scolded — just  now. ' ' 

"Just  now"   came  out  in  a  strangled  whisper,   as 


112        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

though  it  had  wrung  itself  up  out  of  the  hollows  of 
her  heart. 

Lady  Kershaw  heard  in  it  a  two-fold  cause  of  deso- 
lation. She  put  down  her  knitting,  and  laid  a  kind 
hand  on  the  girl's  tumbled  hair. 

''Don't  cry,  dear,"  she  said,  softly,  "I  will  not  say 
another  word.  You  shall  go  as  kitchen-maid,  if  you 
like;  and  perhaps  you  are  right,"  she  added,  after  a 
pause,  watching  the  passionate  heaving  shoulders  with 
a  wise  eye.  "It  will  divert  your  mind.  Poor  Mr. 
Rivers'  death  was  very  sudden." 

Millicent  lifted  herself  with  a  little  cry,  and,  clasping 
convulsive  arms  about  her  friend,  drew  her  head  down 
and  pressed  it  against  her  shoulder. 

' '  I  want  to  forget, ' '  she  said ;  "  I  shall  go  mad  if  I 
do  not  take  to  something.  I  want  to  go  into  the 
world,  and  take  some  part  in  life." 

"Go  into  the  world!  Just  hear  her!  And  instead 
of  booking  her  passage  to-morrow  in  a  P.  and  O. 
steamer,  and  seeing  it  to  some  purpose,  she  proposes 
to  shut  herself  up  in  the  little  schoolroom  of  some 
little  grocer,  and  whip  the  tremendous  circumstance 
that  twice  two  are  four  into  the  thick  heads  of  his 
urchins.  Oh,  Millicent,  Millicent,  there  is  not  a  doctor 
in  the  town  who  would  not  sign  a  certificate  of  lunacy 
against  you.  Go  away,  Richard,  haven't  you  the  dis- 
cretion to  know  when  you  are  not  wanted?  Poor  Mil- 
licent is  crying  her  eyes  out  because — because  her 
new  hat  has  a  black  plume  instead  of  a  white  flower  in 
it ;  it  is  true  she  looks  a  fright  in  it. " 

Was  he  deceived?  At  the  sound  of  his  foot,  the 
tumbled  head  had  lifted  and  faced  round.  For  one 
moment  the  girl's  eyes  met  his,  then  she  had  forced  a 
smile  upon  her  quivering  lips,  and  turned  her  face 
again. 

With  a  hasty  apology,  choking  the  rallying  laugh 
his  mother's  words  evoked,  he  strode  away. 

He  was  not  able  to  persuade  himself  that  any 
woman's  eyes  had  ever  looked  like  that  for  no  more 
valid  reason  than  a  feather.  The  buoyant,  strong- 
hearted  girl,  with  her  generosities  and  friendly 


"RUBBISH."  113 

impulses,  whose  affairs  his  own  affairs  had  left  him  so 
little  leisure  to  consider,  had  all  of  a  sudden  shown 
him  her  heart  in  ruins.  He  set  aside  the  dawning 
truth;  he  was  no  coxcomb  to  extract  one  gleam  of 
exultation  from  it.  He  went  out  with  a  stern  counte- 
nance, striving  to  convince  himself  that  all  her  grief 
was  for  her  dead  father. 


H4  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
EVE. 

"  If  them  fill  thy  brain  with  Boston  and  New  York,  with  fashion 
and  covetotisness,  and  wilt  stimulate  thy  jaded  senses  with  wine 
and  French  coffee,  thou  shalt  find  no  radiance  of  wisdom  in  the 
lonely  waste  of  the  pine-woods." 

"Heavens!  how  glum  you  look,"  Alicia  chid  him, 
as  she  descended  lightly  to  the  platform.  "Consider 
you  are  to  be  married  to  me  within  a  fortnight,  I  can- 
not say  your  face  is  flattering." 

He  smiled  as  he  loosed  her  hand.  Three  men  who 
had  traveled  in  the  carriage  with  her  looked  out  upon 
him  grudgingly.  She  was  radiantly  lovely  in  a 
coquettish  toque  of  fur  and  scarlet  velvet.  The  elo- 
quent admiration  of  her  fellow-travelers  had  set  her 
cheeks  aglow,  and  transformed  her  eyes  to  brilliants. 
They  were  strangers  to  her,  but  the  key  of  sex  unlocks 
many  doors,  and  by  the  time  Alicia  reached  her  desti- 
nation, though  she  had  spoken  no  word  to  any  one  of 
them  beyond  conventional  thanks  for  closing  windows, 
adjusting  foot-warmers,  and  lending  illustrated  papers, 
she  was  on  good  terms — and  on  different  terms — with 
each  and  all.  Alicia  had  the  faculty  common  to  some 
women  of  transforming  man  into  a  mere  male  animal. 
By  the  mesmeric  magic  of  her  personality  she  hyp- 
notized will,  taste,  and  all  the  later  developments  of 
evolved  humanity.  In  the  charmed  atmosphere  of  her 
sorcery  he  reverted  to  the  conditions  of  Genesis.  He 
was  Adam,  she  Eve,  and  they  stood  together  in  an 
Eden  no  longer  Eden,  for  both  had  eaten  of  the  apple. 

She  called  it  making  fools  of  them.  Certainly  it  was  a 
situation  with  which  mind  had  but  little  to  do.  So  the 
male  animals  peering  that  morning  from  the  carriage 
windows,  and  seeing  another  male  animal  assume 
proprietorship  of  this  bewildering  vision  of  velvet  and 
pinkness,  corn-gold  hair,  silk  petticoats,  and  scented 


EVE.  115 

fur,  felt  their  hearts  stir  murderously  toward  him,  as 
they  had  stirred  in  less  degree  the  one  against  the 
other,  detecting  in  her  delectable  gaze  some  quality  or 
measure  of  favor  to  one  who  had  moved  the  hot-water 
tin  above  that  accorded  to  another  who  had  closed  the 
window,  or  a  third  who  lent  her  papers. 

But  the  train  moved  on,  and  the  vision  remained 
behind  in  the  possession  of  the  tall  military-looking 
person  on  the  platform.  One  of  the  passengers  with 
an  aggressive  eye  on  him  in  the  opposite  corner  let 
down  a  window  with  a  rush.  The  wholesome  morning 
air  blew  freshly  in.  The  sensuous  perfume  of  her  fur 
and  silks  gave  way  before  it.  The  men  came  slowly 
back  along  avenues  of  evolution  and  became  men 
again.  One  even  presently  lifted  the  window  in  the 
interest  of  his  rival  opposite.  Five  minutes  earlier  he 
had  remarked  his  cough  and  pallor  with  a  sense  of 
rage  against  him  for  a  certain  interesting  air  it  lent 
him,  yet  he  now  raised  the  window,  observing  him 
cough  and  put  up  his  coat  collar  with  a  thin  hand. 

In  the  meantime  Eve  tripped  off  airily  under 
escort  of  the  other  Adam,  an  Adam  who,  to  his  mis- 
fortune, had  not  yet  tasted  of  the  apple  and  still 
perceived  her  God-made. 

"I  have  bought  such  lots  and  lots  of  things,"  she 
was  saying.  "You  will  never  have  a  notion  how  much 
you  care  about  me  till  you  see  me  in  my  ermine  cape. 
It  is  just  exquisite  and  "fits  me  across  the  shoulders  to 
perfection.  I'm  rather  fair,  you  know,  Richard — 
she  waited,  a  confident  pleased  look  on  the  dainty 
profile  new-painted  by  the  wind.  He  missed  it. 

"Am  I  not  fair?"  she  pouted.  "Richard,  how  cross 
you  are  to-day.  Am  I  a  blackamoor?  Why  do  you 
look  so  grim?" 

"Of  course  you  are  fair,"  he  said,  a  trifle  impatiently. 
"Surely  you  know  you  are  fair."  He  smiled  now. 
"You  are  like  Rosamund,  as  I  have  told  you.  I  was 
thinking  of  something  else. ' ' 

"Didn't  you  hear  about  the  ermine  cape?" 

' '  I  caught  the  word.  What  a  child  you  are,  Alicia. 
Men  are  not  so  desperately  keen  on  frocks,  you  know. ' ' 


Ii6  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"I  know  nothing  of  the  kind,"  she  said,  with  a  curl 
of  her  lip.  "Even  you  always  like  me  fifty  times  as 
well  when  I'm  decently  turned  out." 

They  walked  a  little  way  in  silence. 

Then  she  said,  "What  makes  you  so  dull?  You 
don't  seem  a  bit  interested  in  me  this  morning."  She 
donned  an  injured  air.  For  had  she  not  right  to  feel 
injured?  Mere  strangers  she  had  never  before  seen 
had  shown  more  keenness  about  her  than  she  could 
elicit  from  the  major  this  morning — the  major  who 
would  be  her  bridegroom  in  a  fortnight. 

He  roused  himself. 

4 '  Ermine  sounds  royal, ' '  he  said. 

"It  cost  a  royal  sum,"  she  retorted.  "A  hundred 
guineas." 

"A  hundred  guineas!  Alicia,  are  you  serious?  Does 
a  cloak  cost  so  much?" 

^Some  cloaks  cost  five  hundred  or  treble  five  hun- 
dred," she  said. 

"That's  a  hole  in  your  first  installment." 

She  glanced  at  him  askance.  Then  she  said  coolly, 
"It  did  not  come  out  of  my  first  installment.  Millicent 
is  giving  it  to  me  for  a  wedding  present. ' ' 

An  exclamation  of  distress  broke  from  him.  He 
unconsciously  quickened  his  pace. 

"Alicia,"  he  remonstrated,  "how  can  you?  You  must 
not  accept  her  bounty. ' ' 

"She  has  ever  so  much  more  money  than  she  wants," 
Beauty  retorted.  Then  she  added  calmly :  ' '  You  may 
as  well  hear  all,  now  that  we  are  upon  the  subject. 
She  is  giving  me  a  new  grand  piano — that  in  the 
drawing-room  rattles  like  a  skeleton — a  silver  dessert 
service,  a  set  of  silver-gilt  tea-trays,  two  new  Sevres 
dinner-sevices  and  other  things.  We  must  have  things, 
you  know,  Richard. ' ' 

He  possessed  himself  in  silent  fury.  His  pride  and 
heart  were  wrung,  knowing  the  secret  of  this  gener- 
osity. He  knew  well  enough  Millicent  had  no  great 
fondness  for  Alicia.  What  generosity  of  generosity  it 
was !  Against  that  anguished  look  upon  which  he  had 


EVE.  117 

stumbled,  he  set  this  fact  of  her  rare  bounty  to  his 
bride. 

"It  is  impossible,"  he  broke  out.  "We  cannot  take 
these  things.  Alicia  I  will  not  have  you  take  these 
things.  We  cannot  trade  on  her  generosity.  It  would 
be  monstrous  to  accept  so  much." 

"The  things  are  bought,"  she  answered.  "Oh,  I 
do  hope  you  won't  make  a  fuss  about  trifles,  Richard. 
I  can't  stand  people  making  a  fuss  about  trifles.  And 
we  can't  possibly  insult  her  by  flinging  her  presents  in 
her  face.  She  has  a  right  to  spend  her  money  as  she 
pleases." 

"We  have  no  claim  on  her,  that  she  should  spend  it 
on  us. ' ' 

She  glanced  at  his  set  mouth.  Then  "You  must 
have  a  reason  for  minding  so  much, ' '  she  submitted, 
pointedly.  "Tell  me  your  reason,  Richard." 

"I  have  no  reason,"  he  asserted,  precipitately. 

"Then  the  matter  is  settled,"  she  said.  "I  think 
you  will  like  the  dinner-service.  I  chose  it  to-day. 
And  there  are  two  gold  candlesticks  to  stand  on  either 
side  the  center-piece.  She's  fond  of  me,  Millicent  is, 
and  she  had  a  heap  of  money  saved  up. ' ' 


Ii8  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 
"TO  WORK  AS  MY  FATHER  DID." 

Some  narrow  hearts  there  are 
That  suffer  blight  when  that  they  fed  upon 
As  something  to  complete  their  being  fails, 

But  some  there  are 

That  in  a  sacred  want  and  hunger  rise, 
And  draw  the  misery  home  and  live  with  it, 
And  excellent  in  honor  wait  and  will 
That  somewhat  good  should  yet  be  found  in  it, 
Else  wherefore  were  they  born? 

"It  would  be  better  for  you  to  take  Jock  off  my 
hands,"  she  said,  her  fingers  busy  with  the  kinks  of 
Queenie's  mane.  "So  if  you  will  accept  him — " 

He  shook  his  head  deprecatingly. 

"You  must  have  two  hunters,"  she  urged.  "The 
runs  here  are  so  long,  and  you  are  rather  a  hard 
rider." 

"Did  you  think  of  offering  me  Queenie  also?"  he 
inquired,  with  a  dejected  irony. 

"Oh,  I  could  not  spare  Queenie,  I  must  have  Queenie 
for  my  own. ' ' 

"Well,  then,  to  save  Jock  from  being  ridden  to 
death — "  he  said. 

"Oh,  but  you  are  to  have  Black  Warrior.  Did  not 
Alicia  tell  you?  Mr.  Vaux  is  selling  Black  Warrior, 
and — you  are  to  have  him  for  her  wedding-present  to 
you." 

"It  appears  that  I  am  to  be  a  much  more  fortunate 
person  than  I  deserve,"  he  demurred,  at  his  wit's  end 
to  escape  the  poor  heiress'  ill-judged  prodigality. 

They  were  in  the  stable,  he  having  come  upon  her 
there,  spending  a  parting  hour  with  Queenie.  It  was 
still  the  same  tumble-down  place  it  had  been  when  she, 
in  the  first  flush  of  her  munificence  and  ignorance, 
had  issued  orders  for  its  renovation.  It  was  orderly 


"TO  WORK  AS  MY  FATHER  DID."  119 

and  comfortable,  but  it  was  very  far  from  being  a 
show-stable. 

He  came  round  to  Queenie's  stall,  and  stood  fronting 
her  above  the  mare's  sleek  shoulders. 

"Millicent,"  he  said,  quietly,  "is  Black  Warrior 
already  bought?" 

She  fixed  him  with  a  pair  of  recusant  eyes.  She  set 
her  lips. 

"Yes." 

"Paid  for?" 

She  nodded. 

He  met  her  resolute  eyes  as  resolutely. 

"By  whom?" 

"Alicia  had  a  check  from  her  grandmother — " 

"Her  godmother,  I  know.  But  Alicia  had  a  number 
of  things  to  buy  with  it. ' ' 

"That  was  one  of  them." 

The  situation  was  as  awkward  as  it  was  mortifying. 
He  could  not  charge  her  with  any  hand  in  this  present 
•to  him.  And  yet,  and  yet  it  was  so  unlike  Alicia. 

She  read  his  thoughts. 

' '  Alicia  will  be  different — now, ' '  she  said. 

"If  Alicia  had  you  with  her  always — if  she  had  you 
for  sister" — he  said,  impulsively. 

She  broke  into  a  laugh,  a  mirthless,  hard  laugh, 
unlike  her. 

"Good  heavens!"  she  cried,  "what  have  I,  a  trades- 
man's daughter,  to  teach  her — beautiful,  aristocratic, 
with  the  world  at  her  feet.  Never  tell  her — you  must 
never  tell  her  what  you  said.  I  could  not  bear  her  to 
— to  laugh. ' ' 

"She  could  not  laugh — how  could  she  laugh?"  he 
protested.  "She  has  told  me  of  your  kindness,  of 
your  generous  presents.  It  is  too  much.  You  put  us 
under  too  great  obligation. ' ' 

'May  I  not  spend  rny  money  as  I  choose?" 
'You  should  spend  your  money  on  yourself." 
'I  should  be  a  nice  creature!" 
'There  are  charities,  hospitals  and — " 
'I  know.     But  I  am  a  vulgar  sort  of  person,  I  sup- 
pose.   I  like  to  see  results.    I  like  people  I  like  to  have 


120        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

things  they  like.  It  is  only  another  form  of  liking  to 
have  what  I  like  myself,"  she  asserted,  repudiating 
any  merit. 

"It  is  rather  a  different  form,"  he  said. 

After  a  pause.     "May  I  talk  sense  to  you?" 

"Not  if  it  is  the  kind  of  sense  you  have  just  been 
talking,"  she  retorted. 

"No,"  he  said,  "Alicia  and  I  can  only  be  married 
once,  so  that  you  can  have  no  further  excuse  for  such 
generosity.  It  is  about  this  new  project  of  yours — 
this  project  of  working.  You  have  nobody  to  advise 
you. ' ' 

"I  need  nobody." 

"You  are  young,"  he  deprecated. 

"I  am  twenty-three.  You  are  not  so  very  much 
more  than  ten  years  older." 

"Ten  years  means  a  good  deal  in  worldly  wisdom." 

A  shadow  swept  her  face.  It  lost  some  of  its  defiant 
confidence. 

"Don't,"  she  pleaded,  "it  is  past  talking  about.  It 
is  all  arranged.  I  go  to-morrow. ' ' 

"Nothing  is  irrevocable,"  he  said,  firmly,  "if  you 
will  let  me  rearrange  it  for  you.  You  have  no  notion 
of  what  you  may  be  letting  yourself  in  for. ' ' 

"Oh,  let  me  alone!"  she  cried,  "let  me  alone!  It 
has  not  been  so  easy  to  make  up  my  mind. ' ' 

She  came  out  of  the  stall,  and  paced  twice  up  and 
down  the  stable.  Then,  controlling  herself,  she 
stopped  and  stood  before  him.  She  looked  up  at  him 
with  trouble  in  her  face. 

"You  must  not  think  it  strange — it  isn't  the  least  bit 
strange  that  I  should  wish  to  work.  I  come  of  a  race 
of  workers.  We  have  never  been  gentle-folk,  and  I 
have  grown  tired  of  idleness.  I  want  to  be  of  some 
use  in  the  world.  I  am  strong  and  well,  and  I  want  to 
work,  as  my  father  and  grandfather  before  me  did.  If 
it  should  ever  happen  that — if  you  should  ever  think 
that  there  is  any  other  reason  for  my  going  back  to 
my  class  and  working  than  that  I  wished  it,  never 
believe  it.  Remember  what  I  am  telling  you  now." 

Something  in  her  manner  wakened  his  suspicion. 


"TO  WORK  AS  MY  FATHER  DID."  121 

"Are  you  sure  you  are  telling  me  the  whole  truth?" 
he  questioned.  "Or  have  you  lost  money?  If  it  is 
that,  my  mother  and  I — ' ' 

She  turned  her  face,  but  she  could  not  hide  her  voice. 

"I  know  you  would,"  she  faltered,  "oh,  I  know  you 
would !  But  I  have  not  lost  a  penny. ' ' 

"Then,"  he  said  heartily,  "I  am  satisfied  that  you 
will  come  back  to  us  before  three  months  are  up.  We 
are  not  worthless,  nor  idle,  nor  flimsy,  we  so-called 
leisure  people.  Many  of  us  do  a  great  deal  more  work 
than  those  dubbed  'horny-handed, '  only  it  is  a  different 
form  of  work." 

Later  Millicent  and  Alicia  had  a  very  hot  half  hour. 
Alicia  had  spent  another  morning  with  her  dressmaker 
in  town,  reaching  the  Towers  in  time  for  tea.  She 
came  in  beaming,  with  a  dainty  kidded  hand  linked 
intimately  in  Kershaw's,  he  having  met  her  at  the 
station. 

"Oh,  Milly, "  she  said,  "you  are  just  a  wretch  to  be 
going  by  the  mid-day  train  to-morrow :  If  you  would 
only  wait  till  the  afternoon,  my  traveling  frock  would 
have  come.  It's  perfect,  perfect,  perfect,  brown  and 
heliotrope  striped  silk,  with  a  violet  velvet  zouave  and 
passementerie,  and  the  loveliest  wide-brimmed  hat, 
with  knots  of  velvet  violets  and  bows,  and  a  diamond 
buckle — only  Parisian,  dear,  I  couldn't  afford  real 
diamonds,  of  course ;  but  the  whole  thing  is  superb, 
and  you  won't  see  it  after  all." 

"I  dare  say  Millicent  will  survive,"  Lady  Kershaw 
interjected,  dryly. 

"Richard,  don't  let  me  be  snubbed.  I  wish  I  had 
gone  to  tea  at  the  club.  Vaux  invited  me.  You  all 
look  so  disagreeable.  Even  Mill  looks  glum.  You 
would  depress  anybody's  spirits,  and  I  came  in  so 
happy." 

She  drank  her  tea  with  an  air  of  injury — a  brilliant, 
variable  center  in  the  shabby  room.  She  had  the 
faculty  belonging  to  some  persons  of  centering  always 
the  attention  of  a  company  upon  herself.  She  was 
rarely  depressed,  often  in  the  highest  spirits,  but  she 
had  no  gift  of  imparting  her  gaiety;  rather,  she 


122        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

absorbed  the  vitality  of  others,  and,  manufacturing 
brilliancy  from  it,  made  them  seem  dull  by  comparison 
and  by  actual  loss  of  nerve  force.  It  is  an  art  which 
wins  admiration,  but  not  love.  We  are  moved  to  love 
those  who  show  us  ourselves,  rather  than  themselves, 
to  the  best  advantage,  and  even  Kershaw,  Millicent 
confessed,  was  never  at  his  best  with  Alicia. 

She  was  that  afternoon  in  far  too  buoyant  spirits 
to  maintain  her  pique.  She  wanted  to  talk. 

Having  finished  her  tea,  she  removed  her  veil  and 
sat  folding  it,  smoothing  and  patting  it  with  guileful 
fingers ;  then  she  turned  back  her  frilled  sleeves  over 
her  shapely  arms,  and  proceeded  to  slowly  unbutton 
her  long  gloves,  with  a  signal  play  of  eyelashes  and 
tilted  cheek.  Having  unbuttoned,  she  unpeeled  them 
from  the  slender  wrists  and  hands,  with  a  coaxing, 
sinuous  seductiveness.  She  knew  that  the  eyes  of  the 
room  were  upon  her,  Kershaw 's  hot  and  passionate, 
Lady  Kershaw's  disapproving,  Millicent's  wondering 
and  a  little  abashed.  She  dropped  the  shapely 
extremities,  rosy  over  the  tips  and  knuckles,  blanched 
elsewhere  from  the  constriction  of  their  suede  encas- 
ings,  into  her  lap,  arid  unveiled  the  smile  in  her  eyes 
with  an  up  sweep  of  her  drooping  lids.  The  smile 
stole  straight  for  Kershaw.  He  got  up  restlessly,  and, 
striding  to  the  window,  stood  there  looking  out. 

"She  is  mistaking  her  vocation,"  Lady  Kershaw 
reflected  disgustedly,  while  Millicent  felt  suddenly 
ashamed,  and  surprised  at  an  impulse  she  experienced 
to  fling  some  modest  covering  over  the  slender  arms, 
whose  unglovedness  their  mistress  had  perverted  to 
nudity. 

Beauty  was,  however,  too  skilled  an  artist  to  spoil 
the  effect  of  her  moment  by  prolonging  it.  With  a 
sudden  ingenuousness,  which,  according  to  the  ob- 
server's bias  or  powers  of  penetration,  disengaged 
or  did  not  disengage  his  mind  of  any  intention  on  her 
part,  she  broke  into  a  gay  laugh. 

"You  would  never  believe,"  she  cried,  "that  the  first 
person  I  set  eyes  on  at  Riveaux's  was  mother.  She 
was  buying  a  bonnet.  She  made  a  bee-line  for  me,  as 


"TO  WORK  AS  MY  FATHER  DID."  123 

the  Americans  say.  'Your  father  doesn't  mean  to 
pay  a  cent,'  she  whispered,  when  Madame  Riveaux's 
back  was  turned." 

"What  did  you  say?"  inquired  Millicent. 

"Say!  I  looked  her  straight  in  the  face.  I  said,  'I 
mean  to  have  my  beaver  cape,  madam,  even  if  I  have 
to  take  it  from  you  forcibly  in  public,  so  you  know 
what  to  expect. '  ' ' 

"Oh,  Alicia!" 

Alicia  laughed. 

"She  went  off  as  though  she  had  been  shot.  I'll 
engage  to  say  she  won't  wear  it  anywhere  where  there 
is  a  chance  of  meeting  me." 

"Heavens!"  Kershaw  remonstrated,  "couldn't  you 
have  treated  her  decently — under  the  circumstances." 

Alicia  fixed  him  with  her  gleaming  eyes. 

"Not  under  the  circumstances  which  leave  her  in 
possession  of  my  beaver  cape,"  she  said,  incisively. 

She  added,  "For  goodness  sake  don't  preach, 
Richard.  You  never  seem  to  understand  that  in 
choosing  me  you  chose  the  world  and  the  devil.  If 
you  wanted  a  saint  for  your  wife  you  should  have 
selected — "  she  paused  maliciously;  she  turned  her 
eyes  tantalizingly  on  Millicent,  and  watched  her  rising 
color.  She  yawned,  and  concluded — "some  praying- 
deaconess,  or  a  Sunday-school  superintendentess. " 

Millicent  followed  her  presently  upstairs. 

"Did  you  get  it?     Did  you  arrange  with  Vaux?" 

Alicia  was  stricken  silent  for  a  moment.  She 
quickened  her  pace. 

"Oh,  it  is  all  right,"  she  said,  evasively. 

"What  did  you  arrange?" 

"Oh,  don't  bother  me  now,  Mill.  I  have  such  a 
splitting  headache.  I  am  going  to  lie  down." 

But  Millicent  persisted.  Reaching  Alicia's  door, 
she  would  not  be  dismissed.  She  pushed  in  resolutely. 

"I  want  to  hear  all  about  it,"  she  said. 

Beauty  sat  down  on  her  bed  and  drummed  the 
carpet  with  her  polished  boot-toes. 

Then  she  said  with  an  awkward  laugh : 

"I  forgot  all  about  it  till  I  hadn't  any  money  left." 


124        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

Millicent  stood  over  her  with  flashing  eyes,  and  a 
hot  spot  on  either  cheek.  Then  she  said  in  a 
smoldering  voice,  "What  a  liar  you  are — what  a  mean 
liar,  Alicia.  After  your  promise  and  when  I  trusted 
you." 

"Well,  my  dear,  it  is  no  good  talking.  You  are  a 
fool  to  trust  me.  It  is  more  than  Riveaux  did.  I  had 
to  pay  every  cent  before  she'd  send  the  things.  You 
know  what  I  am  when  my  mind  is  on  clothes,  and  if 
you'd  seen  the  things  Riveaux  has — " 

"If  I  had  seen  the  things,  I  wouldn't  have  been  a 
liar  and — and  a  thief.  The  money  was  not  yours." 

"Don't  revert,  Millicent.  Don't  be  a  furniture- 
polisher.  Decent  people  don't  call  names." 

"You  knew  I  wanted  him  to  have  Black  Warrior. 
Yoii  know  how  fond  he  is  of  hunting. ' ' 

"I  know  and  I  knew.  Good  Lord,  as  if  I  haven't 
anything  to  do  all  day  but  remember  my  lord  and 
master's  fancies.  And  after  all,  my  dear,  you  knew, 
and  you  know  exactly  what  I  am. ' ' 

"I  hoped  you  might  change — now." 

Alicia  scoffed.  "Change!"  she  mocked,  flinging  the 
pins  of  her  hat  contemptuously  on  the  dressing-table. 
"Change  on  rive  thousand  a  year,  when  I  might  have 
had  fifty  thousand.  If  I  had  married  Ludwig  I  should 
have  stood  some  chance.  I  shouldn't  have  needed  to 
trick  and  rib  for  what  I  want.  How  can  a  woman  like 
me  live  decently  on  five  thousand  a  year?" 

Millicent  took  her  by  the  shoulders  and  shook  her 
impetuously. 

"Why  have  I  been  such  a  fool?"  she  cried  under  her 
breath;  "why  have  I  given  all  I  have  in  the  world — 
and,  goodness  knows,  I  am  no  fonder  of  hardships  or 
stint  than  you  are — to  a  woman  like  you?" 

"Don't  be  melodramatic.  Let  go  my  arms  and  I'll 
tell  you.  You  have  given  me  nothing.  I  owe  you 
nothing.  You  would  probably  not  have  spared  a  half- 
penny to  save  me  from  starvation.  Everything  you 
give,  you  give  to  him.  That's  one  truth.  Now, 
shall  I  tell  you  another?  Shall  I  tell  you  why  you 
have  done  it?" 


"TO  WORK  AS  MY  FATHER  DID."  125 

Miliicent  loosed  the  shapely  shoulders.  Her  hands 
dropped  to  her  sides.  She  shot  one  troubled  look  into 
Alicia's  eyes. 

Then  she  said,  "No." 

"I  won't  if  you  don't  wish  it,"  Beauty  said,  arrang- 
ing- her  depressed  sleeve-puffs,  "though  of  course 
anybody  who  knew  the  facts  of  the  case — I  say,  Mill," 
she  continued,  scanning  her  friend's  face  closely,  "we 
shall  have  to  keep  the  facts  of  the  case  dark  in  all 
conscience  if  we  don't  want  the  county  speculating  on 
the  why's  and  wherefore's." 

Miliicent  shivered,  though  her  cheeks  burned  hot. 

"He  is  my  cousin,"  she  said.  "People  would  know 
it  was  natural  enough  for  me  to  do  something  for  my 
cousin. ' ' 

"My  dear,"  Alicia  said,  "whatever  people  are,  they 
are  not  fools,  and  very  few  of  them  are  afflicted  with 
any  high-flown  notions  about  my  duty  to  my  cousin, 
even  though  he  be  nearer  than  ninety-ninth.  I  am 
afraid  they  would  call  you  a  ridiculously  sentimental 
person,  not  because  you  are  head  over  ears  in  love 
with  my  handsome  major — gracious,  Miliicent,  don't 
snap  one's  head  off — it's  no  good  pretending  between 
ourselves — not  because  you  hum — hum,  because,  of 
course,  any  woman  may  be  fond  of  any  man,  but 
because  you  let  your  fondness  run  away  with  your 
hard  cash.  Of  course  people  would  not  believe  the 
facts  to  be  as  they  are.  I'm  not  wicked  enough  to 
guess  what  construction  exactly  they  would  put  upon 
them,  but  depend  on  it,  dear,  it  wouldn't  be  a  very 
creditable  one.  So  we  must  take  care  things  don't 
come  out.  Besides,  Richard  would  certainly  cut  all 
our  throats." 

"I  hate  lies,"  Milly  said;  "they  are  forever  wanting 
patching  up  with  fresh  ones.  I  wish  I  had  told  him  in 
the  beginning." 

"Oh,  good  heavens,  Milly,  what  a  fool  you  are,  with 
all  your  sense.  Do  you  think  he  would  have  listened 
for  a  moment  to  such  a  proposition?" 

"He  might  have  taken  half,  if  he  would  not  take 
all. ' ' 


iz6        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Half!"  Alicia  echoed,  peevishly,  "what  in  the 
name  of  reason  could  we  have  done  with  half?  As  it 
is,  we  shall  have  all  our  work  cut  out  for  us  in  screw- 
ing and  pinching;  it  wouldn't  be  decent  for  Richard 
not  to  entertain  when  he  is  married.  A  hermit  with  a 
wife  would  be  a  mere  burlesque.  People  would  say 
we  were  fond  of  one  another;  we  should  make  our- 
selves mere  laughing-stocks.  As,  it  is,  we  shan't  be 
able  to  afford  any  babies —  Why,  what  an  abrupt 
person  you  are!" 

She  got  up  and  crossed  the  room.  She  stood  staring 
down  at  Millicent. 

"Have  you  got  a  cramp  or  something,  you  look  so 
white?  Are  you  going  to  faint?" 

"Oh,  don't  touch  me,  don't  touch  me!"  the  other 
cried,  warding  her  off  with  her  hands.  "Is  there 
nothing  sacred  to  you,  nothing  between  you  and  your 
own  heart?  not  even  the  baby  of  the  man  you  love?" 

Alicia  remained  staring  blankly  at  her.  She  shook 
her  head. 

"I  never  think  you  can  be  altogether  sane,"  she 
said,  slowly.  "Do  you  mean  it  is  improper  to  mention 
babies,  and  that  I  ought  to  pretend  to  think  they  come 
in  the  doctor's  pocket,  as  we  did  when  we  were  seven? 
Sometimes  you  are  so  atrociously  middle-class  and 
curious,  Millicent,  one  can't  possibly  make  out  what 
you  do  mean.  How  a  baby,  a  mere  bundle  of  sourness 
and  teething,  can  be  sacred — you  said  sacred,  I  think — 
even  before  it  has  come,  to  say  nothing  of  it's  not 
being  christened!  I  am  afraid  you  are  cut  out  for  an 
old  maid,  Mill;  I  don't  see  how  else  you  could  get 
such  notions." 

"Oh,  it  is  no  good  talking  about  it,"  Millicent  cried, 
"you  would  never  understand;  only,  I  say,"  she  ended 
passionately,  "God  help  the  man  who  has  so  sane  a 
woman  as  you  for  wife !; ' 

"Well,  he  took  precious  good  care  not  to  have  you," 
Alicia  retorted.  Then  she  recovered  her  good  humor ; 
good-humor  comes  easily  to  those  with  no  strong 
undersprings  of  feeling  to  disturb  them. 

"Look  here,    Mill,"   she  said,  "let  me  give  you  a 


"TO  WORK  AS  MY  FATHER  DID."  127 

page  or  two  out  of  my  book  of  sanity.  You  are  mak- 
ing an  enormous  mistake;  men  don't  want  high- 
falutin'  sentiment;  men  don't  want  emotions  too  big 
to  be  conveniently  handled.  What  they  all  want,  and 
all  that  most  of  them  want,  is  to  be  amused.  Very 
few  of  them  have  any  imagination,  and  they  get 
bored,  and  getting  bored  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  the 
mischief  in  the  world.  Adam  and  Eve  got  bored  in 
Eden,  that  was  where  the  serpent  came  in.  For  my 
part,  I'm  thankful  enough  he  did;  I  can't  imagine  a 
duller  place  than  Eden  to  be  born  and  bored  in,  espe- 
cially as  they  would  probably  have  kept  up  that  fash- 
ion of  going  without  clothes.  I  don't  see  how  Eve 
could  have  been  expected  not  to  run  her  idle  fingers 
into  mischief,  if  only  as  an  excuse  for  wearing  fig- 
leaves.  However,  this  is  a  theological  digression,  let's 
get  back  to  the  men,  as  we  women  are  sure  to  do  so 
sooner  or  later;  and,  you  know,  Mill,  with  your  old- 
fashioned  notions,  you'd  just  bore  a  man  to  death; 
you're  not  a  scrap  smart." 

"Thank  goodness  for  it,"  Millicent  said;  "there's 
nothing  one  so  soon  gets  sick  of.  It  seems  to  me  now- 
adays everybody  is  straining  to  say  smart  things,  while 
nobody  cares  two  pins  to  hear  smart  things  said.  How- 
ever, you  needn't  trouble,  I'm  not  thinking  of  boring 
any  man  to  death  with  lack  of  smartness  or  big  emo- 
tions. You  know  well  enough  I'm  not  sentimental,  only 
I  should  like  to  be  decently  fond  of  a  man  I  married. " 

"That's  just  where  you'd  make  a  huge  mistake.  A 
woman  can't  manage  a  man  she's  fond  of.  One  kisses 
and  the  other  turns  the  cheek!  and  it's  the  cheek- 
turner  who  gets  the  best  of  things." 

"It  was  some  horrid  French  person  who  said  that," 
protested  Millicent,  "and  I  should  like  to  know  how 
much  French  people  know  about  love;  why,  even 
Victor  Hugo  makes  one  of  his  heroes  doubtful  for 
weeks  whether  he  loves  a  girl,  till  one  day  the  wind 
blows  her  skirts  aside  and  shows  him  her  ankles. 
Then  he  is  sure,  because  they  just  happen  to  be  slim. 
Now,  isn't  that  perfectly  disgusting?"  she  demanded, 
with  an  old-fashioned  blush. 


128        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Oh,  well,  of  course  a  girl  ought  to  have  good 
ankles,"  Alicia  maintained,  complacently  regarding 
her  own  silk-stockinged  members. 

"It  is  more  important  that  she  should  have  a  good 
heart  or  a  good  mind. ' ' 

"But  not  so  attractive,  dear.  Still,  I  don't  see  why 
you  bother — you  have  very  pretty  feet  yourself." 

"It  is  the  principle." 

"Oh,  the  principle,"  the  other  laughed,  "a  fig  for 
principles  where  ankles  are  concerned.  And  the 
strange  thing  is  that  good  women  are  almost  always 
flat-footed.  I  suppose  the  devil  arranged  it  so.  Now 
don't  go  into  a  fit,  Millicent!  it  isn't  my  fault  if  moral 
women  haven't  any  figures,  and  mix  green  and  ma- 
genta in  their  bonnets,  and  never  have  a  hang  about 
their  skirts ;  I  daresay  goodness  is  a  part  of  that  degen- 
eration the  German  man  wrote  a  book  about ;  anyhow, 
it  generally  goes  with  hideousness.  Good  women  get 
their  views  of  things  from  the  church  service ;  they 
call  their  bodies  vile,  and  so  they  don't  groom  prop- 
erly. Instead  of  taking  care  of  their  hair,  they're 
thinking  about  their  halos.  Nobody  ever  saw  a  good 
woman  with  a  decent  set  of  teeth,  just  as  nobody  ever 
knew  a  good  woman  who  didn't  suffer  from  neuralgia. 
They  haven't  any  shoulders,  their  collar-bones  stand 
out  like  reproaches,  you  can  put  your  fists  in  the  hol- 
lows where — oh,  well  I  won't  particularize — and 
they're  shocked  when  other  people  show  their  pretty 
necks.  They  mortify  the  flesh,  and  the  flesh  turns 
round  on  them  presently  and  mortifies  them.  You 
can't  keep  your  looks  unless  you  enjoy  your  dinner, 
and  these  G.  W.'s  (capital  letters,  dear!)  think  it  a  sin 
to  enjoy  anything." 

"There  are  numbers  of  G.  W.'s,  as  you  call  them, 
who  are  pretty  and  bright  and  happy,  and  neither 
sanctimonious  nor  badly  dressed." 

"No,  there  are  only  a  few,"  Alicia  said,  "and  if  it 
were  not  for  those  few,  who  show  that  to  be  good  is 
not  to  be  entirely  vicious,  the  men  and  the  B.  W.'s 
would  take  the  G.  W.'s  to  the  nearest  pond  and  drown 
them.  It  would  be  the  simplest  thing  possible.  You'd 


"TO  WORK  AS  MY  FATHER  DID."  129 

just  start  out  one  wet  Good  Friday  or  Ash  Wednesday, 
and  catch  them  crawling  on  their  great  flat  feet  to 
church,  with  dingy  bonnets  and  black  bombazine 
gowns  and  beaded  dolmans,  turning  everything  sour 
as  they  went.  You'd  want  a  pretty  big  pond  to  hold 
them,  for  the  name  of  the  G.  W.  's  is  legion.  After  it 
was  all  over  the  sun  would  come  out,  and  the  world 
would  look  quite  a  decent  kind  of  place." 

Millicent  laughed  in  spite  of  herself. 

"You  talk  like  a  most  abominable  person,"  she 
said.  ' '  One  would  think  you  were  a  very  wicked  girl 
yourself,  when  really  you  are  only  vain  and  frivolous. ' ' 

Alicia  smiled  demurely. 

"Why,  of  course  I  am  only  vain  and  frivolous,"  she 
said.  "What  else  should  I  be?" 

Millicent  reverted  sturdily  to  her  original  standpoint. 

"What  are  we  going  to  do  about  Black  Warrior?" 
she  insisted.  "I  gave  you  everything  but  a  ten-pound 
note;  and,  even  if  I  could  spare  it,  it  wouldn't  buy 
Black  Warrior. " 

"Bother!"  Alicia  exclaimed,  knitting  her  pretty 
brows.  "What  a  worrying,  narrow  mind  you  have! 
I  thought  the  matter  was  settled.  And  it  may  just  as 
well  be  for  all  there  is  to  be  done  about  it.  He  shall 
have  it  when  next  quarter's  installment  comes  in,  Mil- 
licent, I  promise  faithfully. " 

"So  you  did  yesterday.     No;  he  shall  have  it  now". 

"I  wonder  you  are  not  ashamed  to  make  such  a  fuss 
about  another  woman's  husband." 

"Never  mind  that,"  the  heiress  retorted,  stoutly. 
"When  I  take  a  thing  into  my  head  I  stick  to  it." 

"Heavens!  how  you  give  yourself  away!  I  can 
hear  your  worthy  father,  furniture  brush  in  one  hand, 
polish-bottle  in  the  other,  and  duster  over  his  arm." 

"You  let  my  father  alone,"  Millicent  said,  with  a 
sob  in  her  throat.  "I  was  proud  of  him;  I  am  proud 
of  his  memory,  his  honesty  and  energy,  and  his  sim- 
plicity. It  only  hurts  me  to  think  how  it  would  cut 
him  to  the  heart  if  he  could  see  me  going  out  into  the 
world  to-morrow  without  a  penny,  while  you — 

"Well,  of  course,  the  dear  old  soul  never  dreamed 


130        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

of  me  having-  it.  Still,  the  godmother  may  die  any 
moment,  Mill,  and,  of  course,  I  shall  pay  you  every 
penny  back." 

"Well,  I  am  not  wishing  her  to  die;  only  people 
must  die,  of  course ;  and  it  was  nice  to  be  an  heiress. 
I  am  sure  I  don't  know  how  I  shall  ever  like  govern  - 
essing. ' ' 

"If  you  don't,"  Alicia  consoled  her,  "you  can  always 
come  back  here  and  live  with  us." 

"Oh,  you  know  I  could  never  do  that." 

Alicia  looked  relieved. 

"It  doesn't  always  work,  of  course,  to  have  a  third 
person  in  the  house — a  fourth  person,  indeed,  if  the 
mother-in-law  remains. ' ' 

"Why,  of  course  she  will  remain.  Where  should 
she  go?" 

"That  would  be  her  affair,"  Alicia  responded, 
smoothly. 

Milicent  was  silent.  Her  face  was  troubled.  Then 
she  said  earnestly: 

"For  heaven's  sake,  Alicia,  do  your  best  to  make 
them  happy !  You  are  really  good-natured  at  heart, 
and  you  can  do  so  much.  They — the  major  is  so  fond 
of  you." 

"Oh,  they'll  be  serene  enough.  I  shan't  interfere 
with  the  mother-in-law  so  long  as  she  doesn't  inter- 
fere with  me.  And  Richard — well,  there  will  always 
be  enough  other  men  admiring  me  to  keep  Richard  a 
devoted  husband. ' ' 

' '  I  wonder  if  you  begin  to  have  the  remotest  notion 
of  Richard's  character." 

Alicia  laughed. 

"Hear  the  innocent!"  she  cried.  "If  there  is  one 
thing  in  the  world  I  understand,  it  is  men.  You  see  I 
don't  put  them  up  on  pedestals,  so  I  can  get  near 
enough  to  see  where  they  are  chipped." 

"They  are  not  all  chipped,"  the  heiress  dissented, 
hotly. 


A  POOR  PLAIN  FOOL.  131 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 
A  POOR  PLAIN  FOOL 

Now  I  begin  life  again ;  but  a  clearer  and  a  stronger  beginning ; 
Not  as  a  child,  but  a  woman — a  teacher  of  children  not  mine. 

It  was  a  dull,  damp  morning  when  Millicent  stole 
guiltily,  and  on  surreptitious  tiptoes,  down  the  shabby 
staircase  of  the  Towers,  seeming  the  shabbier  for 
night's  drab  wrappings  which  still  clung  there,  and  to 
which  the  dawning  day  gave  the  appearance  of  dust 
cloths,  spread  for  economic  purposes. 

She  was  dressed  for  traveling.  She  carried  her  veil 
and  her  gloves  in  her  hand.  Her  eyes  trailed  wistful 
good-bys  as  she  went.  It  seemed  to  her  that  all  she 
remembered  of  life  worth  remembering  had  happened 
since  she  had  known  the  Kershaws.  And  now  she 
was  leaving  everything  behind — for  ever,  for  she  did 
not  suspect  herself  of  sufficient  heroism  to  revisit  the 
Grange  when  Alicia  should  be  its  mistress. 

She  paused  before  a  door.  Three  pairs  of  the 
smallest,  most  fashionable  boots  stood  there  in  all  the 
brilliancy  of  recent  polish,  and  with  an  air  of  despis- 
ing the  shabby  mat  which  harbored  them. 

"To  those  who  have  it  shall  be  given,"  she  quoted, 
in  bitterness  of  spirit;  "while  I — I  am  only  a  poor, 
plain  fool!" 

Her  thought  passed  the  door,  and  entered  Beauty's 
bedroom.  She  pictured  her  sleeping — oh,  she  would 
be  sleeping  soundly  enough !  No  envious  shadow  of 
a  poor,  plain  fool,  standing  bitter  and  bereft  outside, 
would  darken  her  picturesque  slumber.  Her  head, 
with  its  shining  cloud  of  fair  hair,  the  wild-rose  face, 
the  flushed  cheeks,  swept  by  the  gold-tipped  semi- 
circles of  her  fringed  lids,  would  be  nestling  daintily 
against  the  pillows,  as  Millicent  had  seen  and  wor- 
shiped her  at  school.  Her  arms  and  waxen  hands, 


132         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

curled  up  like  rose-leaves,  her  rival  reflected  ruefully, 
would  be  lifted  above  her  head,  framing  her  perfect 
face,  or  rest  beneath  her  dainty  cheek. 

She  had  a  moment's  exultation  remembering  that 
the  picture  would  be  marred  by  the  circumstance  that 
Beauty's  hair  did  not  curl  naturally,  so  necessitating 
the  use  of  curling  pins.  Moreover,  Beauty  invariably 
slept  in  gloves  to  keep  her  hands  white.  Then  she 
was  plunged  into  black  self-scorn  for  her  unworthi- 
ness. 

"It  is  time  I  should  go,"  she  murmured.  "I  am 
becoming  a  very  base  person,  while  I  have  been  flat- 
tering myself  that  I  am  doing  rather  an  heroic  thing!" 

She  kissed  her  hand  to  Lady  Kershaw's  door,  swal- 
lowing a  fullness  in  her  throat.  She  hurried  past 
another,  abashed,  and  with  a  downcast  head. 

She  had  poured  her  tea  and  chipped  an  egg,  and  sat 
staring  abstractedly  down  the  long  room,  when  she 
heard  a  step  in  the  hall. 

The  blood  rushed  over  her  face.  She  swept  up  her 
handkerchief  and  mopped  her  eyes.  She  swallowed 
half  her  tea. 

"Now,  give  me  courage  to  behave  decently,"  she 
insisted  of  herself. 

"Oh,  good-morning,"  she  said,  lightly,  "you  are 
very  early." 

"I  meant  to  be  earlier,"  he  smiled.  "I  intended  to 
be  down  as  soon  as  you." 

"How  did  you  know?" 

' '  I  heard  it  in  the  stables  last  night,  and  I  thought 
we  would  breakfast  together." 

"Two  big  lumps  and  a  little  one?"  she  submitted, 
with  no  very  great  achievement  in  cheerfulness. 

"Thank  you.     How  do  you  remember?" 

"Oh,  I  remember,"  she  said;  "you  see,  my  head  is 
not  full  of  poetry. " 

He  helped  himself  to  some  of  the  cold  baked  meats 
of  an  impromptu  breakfast,  and  seated  himself  near  her. 

"The  mother  will  be  disappointed." 

"I  hate  good-bys.  They  are  so — so  mawkish,  don't 
3rou  think?" 


A  POOR  PLAIN  FOOL.  133 

"They're  not  cheerful." 

"Oh,  I  am  always  cheerful,"  she  insisted,  winking 
her  red  eyelids.  "It  isn't  that.  You  know  I  am  not 
at  all  a  sentimental  person.  But  I  cannot  carry  off 
difficult  situations  gracefully.  So  I  wrote  my  good- 
bys  in  letters. ' ' 

She  produced  from  her  pocket  two  addressed  envel- 
opes. "I  am  afraid  I  have  crumpled  them,"  she  said, 
speaking  rapidly;  "I  hope  Lady  Kershaw  will  not 
mind.  There  might  be  time  to  write  hers  again." 

He  took  the  letters.  One  he  put  into  his  pocket 
gravely.  The  other  he  smoothed  out  with  a  quiet  hand, 
and  placed  upright  on  the  mantel-board.  And  all  the 
while  he  kept  his  looks  sedulously  averted  from  the 
heiress'  red  eyes,  to  the  poor  heiress'  combined  relief 
and  chagrin.  He  cannot  think  of  anybody  but  Alicia, 
she  reflected,  dolefully. 

"I  don't  think  you  need  keep  the  other  letter,"  she 
submitted.  "I  can  say  good-by  to  you — easily  enough, 
you  know." 

"I  will  keep  it  if  I  may,"  he  said.  "Perhaps  it  gives 
me  your  address .  Alicia  and  I  will  certainly  go  to  see 
you,  if  you  will  let  us." 

There  was  a  very  long  silence — a  silence  long  enough 
to  allow  a  very  salt,  a  very  slow,  and  very  solitary  tear 
roll  down  the  heiress'  cheek  and  fall  into  the  mar- 
malade she  had  heaped,  with  much  pretense  of  interest 
in  marmalade,  upon  her  plate.  Then  she  said  casually : 

"Oh,  please  don't  think  of  troubling  to  come  so  far 
— it  is  nearly  a  hundred  miles  from  here.  And  I  shall 
be  frightfully  busy.  I  don't  think  a  governess  gets 
much  time  off.  And  they  may  be  very  disagreeable 
people,  you  know. " 

"That  is  what  I  mean  to  know,"  he  said,  firmly. 
"You  see,  my  mother  and  I,  although  you  are  so  ter- 
ribly independent,  feel  in  a  way  responsible  for  you. 
You  must  not  forget  we  are  your  cousins. " 

"No,  I  remember  it." 

"So  we  shall  go  and  see  for  ourselves  that  you  are 
happy.  I  have  found  these  people's  references  all 
right." 


134        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"You?     Why,  when  have  you  had  time?" 

"Oh,  I  had  time,"  he  said.  "By-the-by,  you  didn't 
give  me  a  letter  for  Alicia. " 

"We  said  good-by  last  night." 

It  had  been  a  distinctly  stormy  "good-by,"  for  Mil- 
licent  had  insisted  upon  it  that  Beauty  should  wire 
countermanding  orders  for  a  set  of  furs,  a  diamond 
clasp,  a  length  of  Oriental  silk,  and  sundry  other  pur- 
chases. 

"You  have  quite  enough  things,"  the  heiress  had 
asserted,  firmly,  "and,  as  I  told  you  before,  I  mean 
you  to  give  that  wedding  present.  So  write  to  Mr. 
Vaux  to-night. " 

Alicia  raved,  Alicia  wept,  Alicia  even  swore.  But 
she  sent  the  wires  and  wrote  the  letter.  Millicent  was 
not  a  person  to  defy.  And  once  out  of  the  house — 
well,  there  was  some  very  pleasant  spending  in  an 
income  of  five  thousand,  when  one  had  for  husband  a 
person  who  required  little  else  beside  pens  and  paper? 

"Alicia  knew,  then,  that  you  were  leaving  early. 
I  cannot  understand  her  not  being  down  to  see  you 
off." 

The  heiress'  brown  eyes,  at  the  same  time  soft  and 
shrewd,  swept  up  to  his  face.  She  was  thinking  how 
very  little  indeed  he  did  understand  where  Alicia  was 
concerned. 


"Now,  I  am  going  to  really  live,"  she  said,  drawing 
a  deep  breath  as  they  went  skimming  into  the  green- 
gray  mists  of  the  long  drive. 

The  major  wielding  the  reins  glanced  down  at  the 
resolute  profile.  The  young  pinkness  and  roundness 
of  it  moved  him.  There  were  lights  like  fireflies  in 
her  gold-brown  hair.  Perhaps  for  the  first  time  in 
their  acquaintance  he  fully  realized  her  comeliness. 
And  she  was  so  fresh  and  clear-headed,  so  self -helpful 
and  generous-hearted.  He — they  would  all  be  sorry 
to  lose  her.  They  would  miss  her  ringing  voice  and 
laugh,  and  the  light  step  bent  always  on  some  cheery 
errand  for  another.  He  found  himself  thinking  that 


A  POOR  PLAIN  FOOL.  135 

Alicia  needed  but  a  touch  of  his  impulsive  warm- 
hearted cousin  to  make  her  perfect. 

''Twenty  years  ago  I  drove  down  this  drive  with  the 
same  thought."  ^ 

"Well,  you  have  lived,"  she  said.  "You  have  seen 
life,  and  have  done  brave  things. " 

He  shook  his  head. 

"But  you  have,"  she  insisted.  "Work  makes  men 
of  men,  and  I  don't  see  why  it  should  not  make  women 
of  women.  One  grows  so  tired  of  eternal  dressings- 
up  and  visitings." 

There  was  silence.     Then  Kershaw  said: 

"We  shall  miss  you — we  shall  all  miss  you  very 
much,  Millicent." 

The  heiress  put  out  her  hand  in  appeal. 

"Don't,"  she  entreated,  "please  don't.  I  want  all 
my  courage." 

Kershaw  drove  back  dejected. 

"She's  a  splendid  little  thing,"  he  said.  "We  shall 
miss  her  horribly.  She's  like  some  sweet,  old-fash- 
ioned flower.  However,  she'll  soon  get  tired  of  this 
'seeing  life'  business,  and  come  back  to  us." 

He  fell  to  blaming  himself  that  he  had  not  given 
more  thought  to  her. 

"A  man  in  love  is  a  senseless  sort  of  brute,"  he 
reflected. 

"Why,  you  selfish  creature,"  Alicia  scolded,  pouting 
a  kiss  up  to  him  as  she  met  him  on  the  steps.  "I've 
been  bored  to  death  without  anyone  to  talk  to. " 

"I  drove  Millicent  to  the  station,"  he  said,  shortly. 

Alicia  shot  one  suspicious  glance  at  him. 

"She  told  me  you  didn't  know." 

"I  didn't,  till  I  heard  it  last  night  in  the  stables." 

"Well,  do  come  in  to  breakfast.  I'm  just  starving, 
and  the  tea  will  be  cold.  I  suppose  Mill  was  jubilant 
going  out  to  fight  windmills?" 

"Not  altogether,"  he  said. 


I36  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER   XIX. 
WINKWORTH. 

A  man's  money  should  not  follow  the  direction  of  his  neighbor's 
money,  but  should  represent  to  him  the  things  he  would 
willingliest  do  with  it. 

The  railway  journey  from  Roldermere  to  Wink  worth 
was  a  tedious  one.  There  were  two  changes,  with 
long  waits,  between  Roldermere  and  London,  and  one 
change  between  London  and  Winkworth.  Winkworth 
was  only  some  twenty  miles  down  the  line,  but  the 
neighborhood  along  this  line  was  a  new  and  growing 
one,  and,  to  foster  its  growth,  and  provide  for  future 
contingencies,  the  company  had  supplied  it  with  an 
inordinate  number  of  stations.  Greatly  to  the  disgust 
of  Winkworth  season  ticket-holders,  who  spent  the 
tedious  times  of  stopping  in  wondering  why  the  deuce 
the  train  did  not  run  through  to  their  particular  junc- 
tion, without  wasting  time  calling  at  all  the  little  rub- 
bishy stations  the  company  had  had  the  impudence  to 
run  up ! 

Millicent' s  fine  ardor  at  the  prospect  of  "living"  was 
somewhat  damped  by  the  time  she  reached  her  desti- 
nation. Like  most  young  people,  she  was  unaware 
that  ardor  and  every  other  sentiment  has  its  source  in 
food,  and  that  buns  and  tea  are  insufficient  main- 
spring; more  especially  as,  in  addition  to  the  wear 
and  tear  of  traveling  in  a  crowded  third-class  carriage, 
with  the  burden  of  luggage  on  her  mind,  and  the  neces- 
sity for  changing  at  the  proper  junctions  on  her  con- 
science, she  had  been  battling  all  daylong  with  strong 
emotions.  She  had  not  guessed  how  closely  she  had 
knit  herself  to  her  new  life  and  friends  till  now,  when 
sundered  from  them,  she  had  the  horrible  raw  sense 
of  a  thing  torn  up  by  the  roots. 

As  on  that  first  occasion  of  her  leaving  home,  so  now 


WINKWORTH.  137 

there  was  nobody  at  the  station  to  meet  her.  She  was 
surprised  to  find  that  she  had  expected  such  an  atten- 
tion. But  the  luxurious  traveling,  which  was  all  she 
had  previously  known  of  traveling,  with  a  maid  and 
footman  to  anticipate  her  needs,  resulted  in  her  feeling 
herself  to  be  a  very  helpless  person,  as  she  alighted 
from  the  carriage  with  her  ticket  in  a  glove,  an 
umbrella  in  one  hand,  and  a  wrap  over  an  arm. 

"It  was  time,"  she  said,  self -scorn  fully,  "it  was 
time  I  was  taken  out  of  splints,  before  I  entirely  lost 
my  backbone. ' ' 

She  felt  a  rise  of  spirits,  recognizing  her  misfortunes 
to  be  salutary.  She  collected  her  bag  and  baggage 
with  a  masterliness  which  would  have  done  credit  to 
her  practical  father,  and,  putting  them  in  charge  of  a 
porter,  found  herself  seated  in  a  cab,  with  her  luggage 
on  the  roof,  in  the  course  of  a  very  few  minutes.  She 
gave  the  porter  her  address  and  a  sixpence,  which 
delighted  him,  then  leaned  back  in  a  glow  of  achieve- 
ment, examining  the  features  of  Winkworth  with 
breathless  interest. 

Winkworth  was  a  town  of  red-brick  villas,  detached 
and  standing  with  an  air  of  suburban  selectness  in 
their  own  more  or  less  handsome  gardens;  semi- 
detached, and  sharing  with  their  neighbors  the  parti- 
wall  which  divided  more  than  it  united  them,  and  the 
oaken  garden  fence,  which  served  as  a  south  and  sunny 
support  for  the  rose-trees  of  the  tenant  on  the  north, 
while  throwing  a  dank  and  blighting  shadow  all  down 
the  length  of  garden  of  the  tenant  on  the  south.  The 
result  of  this  was — for  the  gardens  were  bounded 
exteriorly  by  privet-hedges — that  all  summer  long 
the  northern  tenant  went  to  business  every  morning 
with  a  buttonhole  of  roses  in  his  coat,  seeing  which  the 
southern  tenant  passed  by  on  the  other  side  and  cut 
him. 

During  winter,  when  external  cold  impressed  the 
need  for  thawing  somewhere,  more  or  less  pleasant  if 
but  slight  amenities  transpired  between  houses  north 
and  south.  Possibly  Mrs.  North's  pipes  were  frozen, 
and  Mrs.  South,  on  an  exchange  of  compliments,  gra- 


138        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

cicmsly  assented  to  their  respective  maids  passing 
buckets  of  water  above  the  obnoxious  fence.  Or  Mrs. 
South 's  boiler  would  split,  for  some  inexplicable  rea- 
son, and  Mrs.  South 's  kitchen  would  be  for  a  time  a 
scene  of  wild  and  wet  confusion,  her  fire  hissing  venge- 
fully  out  amid  spouting  clouds  of  steam,  whereupon 
Mrs.  South  would  maybe  dispatch  an  appeal  to  the 
effect  that  her  nursery  rice-pudding  might  be  permit- 
ted to  find  haven  and  cooking  in  Mrs.  North's  oven. 

Amenities  have,  indeed,  been  known  to  attain  such 
warmth  in  wintry  seasons  that  Mr.  North  has  even  so 
far  thawed  as  to  lend  Mr.  South  his  wooden  snow- 
shovel  for  the  better  clearing  of  his  portion  of  the  roof, 
a  concession  which  only  those  who  have  in  their  day 
been  possessors  of  snpw-shovels  will  properly  appreci- 
ate !  With  spring,  when  budding  leaves  would  stir  up 
rankling  memories  again  in  the  southerly  bosom,  and 
the  line  of  shadow  cast  by  the  fence  would  be  accent- 
uated by  a  border  of  hoar-frost  and  tardy  sprouting  of 
the  hardy  shrubs ;  which  alone  would  grow  there  then, 
unless  it  should  happen  to  be  an  influenza  year,  when 
mere  humanity  forbade  a  feud  with  a  man  whose  house- 
hold, from  garret  to  best  bedroom,  was  prone  with 
"weeping  sickness,"  then  would  South  repent  him  of 
the  snow-shovel  and  the  friendly  water-buckets.  And 
when  Mr.  North  has  paraded  himself,  sprinkling,  fer- 
tilizing, and  remarking  with  a  triumphant  eye  the 
sunned  and  sheltered  treasures  of  his  side  of  the  fence, 
Mr.  South  has  been  heard  to  swear  behind  the  curtain 
of  his  drawing-room  window  a  tremendous  oath  that 
come  next  winter  the  North  brats  shall  eat  their  rice 
puddings  raw  and  cold,  before  he  will  grant  them  sanc- 
tuary and  savor  again  in  any  hospitable  oven  of  his. 
But  I  fancy  Mrs.  South  would  see  to  that ! 

In  the  meantime,  Millicent,  unwitting  of  these  ter- 
rible feuds,  which  friendly  vicinity  and  the  warm  red 
faces  of  "semi-detacheds"  belied,  was  scanning  these 
and  those  of  the  more  imposing  "detacheds"  with  ap- 
prehensive looks. 

The  cab  stopped  presently  before  a  fair-sized  villa, 
semi-detached  and  standing  in  a  pretty  garden,  with 


WINKWORTH.  139 

five  young  poplars  growing  straight  and  slender  close 
behind  a  wooden  fence.  There  was  a  gravel  drive, 
common  to  the  two  houses,  curving  to  the  door,  and  a 
gate  at  either  end,  but,  as  neither  was  open,  the  cab- 
man pulled  up  outside. 

Millicent  got  down,  and  inquired  of  him,  as  he  sat 
somnolently  placid  on  his  box : 

"How  are  you  going  to  carry  in  the  luggage?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"I  can't  leave  my  'orse, "  he  retorted,  though  to  look 
at  it  you  would  not  suppose  any  greater  danger  to 
threaten  the  community  from  the  circumstance  of 
leaving  it  than  that  it  might  fall  asleep. 

Millicent  was  a  person  of  resources.  She  unlatched 
the  gate  and  propped  it  open  with  a  stone.  Then  she 
stepped  back  into  the  cab. 

"Drive  up  to  the  house,"  she  insisted. 

The  man  muttered  something  unintelligible,  but 
obeyed. 

On  a  mat,  at  the  top  of  six  very  white  steps,  a  bull- 
dog had  lain  sleeping;  by  the  time  the  cab  stopped 
the  bulldog  was  awake  and  "wareing"  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  fact.  His  stout  forelegs  were  planted  in 
advance  of  him  and  well-astride,  supporting  a  very 
broad  and  portly  shirt-front.  Above  this  there  was 
little  to  be  seen  beyond  an  enormous  underhung  jaw, 
a  blood-red  cavern  of  a  mouth,  richly  endowed  with  all 
he  would  be  likely  to  need  in  the  matter  of  teeth,  a 
ring  of  glistening  lips,  which  appeared  to  have  been 
recently  black-leaded,  and  out  of  these  ominous  por- 
tals there  issued  an  intermittent  roar  which  seemed  to 
shake  the  very  earth.  The  cabman  tucked  up  his  legs 
on  the  seat,  the  horse  rolled  his  eyes  apprehensively, 
while  Millicent  hesitated. 

"Thus  far,"  yelled  the  bulldog,  "and  no  farther!" 
till  a  small  boy,  dressed  in  a  sailor  suit,  appeared  dart- 
ing up  the  steps,  and  proceeded  to  cuff  him  over  his 
bloodthirsty  jowl  with  a  fat  fist. 

Whereupon  he  lay  down  at  the  half -unfastened  boots 
of  this  fierce  person  like  an  innocent  spring  lamb,  and 
fell  to  sobbing  like  a  grampus. 


140        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"You  just  dare  make  that  row,  and  I'll — I'll  throttle 
you, ' '  the  small  boy  shrilled.  ' '  You  know  well  enough 
mother's  got  a  headache,  you  brute." 

It  was  plain,  from  an  abject  guilt  apparent  in  the 
bulldog's  eye,  that  the  bulldog  knew  it,  as  it  was  also 
plain  that  he  was  in  mortal  dread  of  being  throttled. 
He  groveled  and  whined  and  sobbed  for  clemency, 
licking  the  hand  that  cuffed  him  with  a  slobbery 
tongue. 

The  boy  came  down  the  steps,  and  stood  with  his 
hands  in  his  pockets  and  his  legs  apart,  gazing  into 
the  cab. 

"It's  all  right,"  he  said,  "he  won't  hurt  you." 

Millicent  smiled  and  nodded.  She  put  her  foot  on 
the  step. 

"Oh,  I  say!"  the  boy  inquired,  abruptly,  "  'r'you 
the  new  guv'ness?" 

Millicent  nodded  again. 

"Oh,  I  say!"  the  boy  exclaimed  again,  with  a  blank 
face;  "well,  I'm  off,  you  know." 

He  suited  the  action  to  the  word,  and  vanished  up 
the  steps. 

Whereupon  the  bulldog  resumed  his  former  valiant 
front  and  roar.  It  was  evident  he  liked  governesses 
no  better  than  his  master. 

Now,  however,  a  smart-capped  maid  appeared,  and 
bustled  him  into  the  house,  leaving  Millicent  free  to 
enter. 

She  was  shown  into  a  drawing-room  which  might 
have  been  pretty  but  for  a  bewilderment  of  things  in 
it,  which  gave  it  the  aspect  of  a  warehouse. 

An  anxious-faced,  faded  little  woman  advanced  ner- 
vously to  meet  her. 

"I  am  so  sorry,"  she  apologized;  "what  you  must 
have  thought  of  us!  That  awful  bulldog!  We  really 
must  get  rid  of  him. ' ' 

Millicent  shook  hands. 

"He  is  a  fine  fellow,"  she  said,  cheerfully;  "and  he 
seemed  mild  enough  with  the  little  boy. ' ' 

"Oh,  he's  quite  mild,"  his  mistress  affirmed,  "only 
he  looks  so  terribly  alarming. ' ' 


WINKWORTH.  141 

The  two  women  measured  swords  with  smiling  looks, 
after  the  fashion  of  polite  society.  Then  Mrs.  Kew- 
Barling  said  hesitantly,  as  though  this  tall,  confident- 
seeming  employee  of  hers  got  suddenly  upon  her 
conscience: 

"I  hope  you  have  been  used  to  children,  Miss  Riv- 
ers. Mine  need  a  great  deal  of  managing. ' ' 

' '  I  am  not  at  all  used  to  children, ' '  Millicent  re- 
sponded, buoyantly;  "but  I  am  fond  of  them,  and  that 
goes  far,  I  think. ' ' 

"You  have  not  been  out  before?" 

Millicent  said  "No,"  a  little  loftily  perhaps. 

"You  were  not  children's  governess  at  Lady  Ker- 
shaw's,  then?" 

"No,"  Millicent  said  again. 

Mrs.  Kew- Bar  ling  looked  puzzled.  She  sighed. 
This  was  scarcely  the  sociable,  homely  girl  she  had 
somehow  expected  from  Lady  Kershaw's  letter,  this 
straight- spined,  charming  young  woman  in  stylish 
mourning. 

Then,  as  the  smart-capped  maid  bustled  in,  with  a 
tea-cloth  folded  wrong  side  out,  and  a  shabby  cosey 
under  her  arm,  Millicent' s  quick  eye  detected  a  slight 
admonishing  frown  on  her  hostess'  anxious  brow,  and 
saw  her  frame  her  lips  to  something  which  she  sus- 
pected to  be,  and  which  afterward  turned  out  to  have 
been,  "Best  cloth  !"  for  the  maid  stopped  short,  turned 
an  interrogative  and  somewhat  supercilious  glance 
upon  the  newcomer,  as  though  protesting,  "What!  for 
the  governess?"  and  rustled  pertly  from  the  room. 

When  she  returned  it  was  with  a  tea-cloth  of  unf  aded 
crimson  satin,  and  a  handsome  velvet  cosey  of  the 
same  tint. 

"Winkworth  seems  a  large  place,"  Millicent  ob- 
served, drawing  off  her  gloves. 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling's  eyes  rested  with  mild  question 
on  their  fresh  newness  and  fine  texture.  Nice  gloves 
were  a  luxury  the  ex-heiress  had  not  summoned  reso- 
lution to  forego.  Perhaps  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  was 
reflecting  that  a  salary  of  thirty-five  pounds  yearly 
would  scarcely  run  to  such  extravagances.  Whatsoever 


142        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

she  was  thinking,  she  was  only  giving  a  portion  of  her 
attention  thereto,  for,  with  a  sudden  nervous  frown 
upon  a  quarter  of  a  seed-cake  in  the  smartly-capped 
one's  hand,  her  anxious  mouth  was  framing  the 
unvoiced  command,  "Best  cake!" 

A  second  time  the  eyes  beneath  the  cap  protested 
pertly,  "What!  for  the  governess?"  then  the  room 
was  re-entered  with  a  superior  compound. 

"A  large  place,  Miss  Rivers,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling 
echoed.  "Oh,  yes,"  she  concluded,  with  pride, 
"Winkworth  has  a  population  of  quite  seventeen 
thousand  persons. ' ' 

"It  must  make  it  pleasant  for  you,"  Millicent  said, 
feeling  the  muffled  confabulation  with  the  smartly- 
capped  one  to  be  a  trifle  embarrassing. 

"Do  you  take  sugar  and — cream?"  Mrs.  Kew-Barl- 
ing inquired,  with  a  glance  of  abasement  into  the 
electroplated  jug,  and  a  guilty  slurring  of  the  term 
describing  its  contents. 

Millicent  assenting,  the  cause  of  guilt  became  appar- 
ent. Their  eyes  met,  averting  themselves  in  some 
confusion  from  the  stream  of  blue-white  fluid  issuing 
from  the  jug. 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  coughed  nervously. 

"I  believe  it  is  only  milk,"  she  said;  "I  have  a  very 
forgetful  cook." 

"I  prefer  milk,"  Millicent  affirmed. 

"Why,  so  do  I,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  said,  with  a 
smile  of  relief. 

There  was  a  pause,  then  the  hostess  observed : 

"You  were  saying?" 

Millicent  dived  into  her  memory. 

"Oh,  yes!  With  seventeen  thousand  people,  Wink- 
worth  must  be  quite  a  lively  place." 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  seemed  somewhat  out  of  coun- 
tenance. Her  face  flushed  a  little.  There  was  a 
tremble  in  her  voice. 

"It  is  very  select,"  she  said,  impressively.  "Wink- 
worth  people  are  exceedingly  select.  One  might  even 
call  them — to  put  the  case  strongly,  Miss  Rivers — 
cliquey. ' ' 


WINKWORTH.  143 

"Oh!"  Millicent  returned,  not  quite  certain  as  to 
how  this  intelligence  was  expected  to  impress  her,  but 
aware  that  it  was  expected  to  impress  her  somewhat 
signally. 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  shook  her  head  gravely. 

"There  are  some  extremely  aristrocratic  people  in 
Winkworth, "  she  said,  "not  only  rich  people,  but  peo- 
ple of  family,  so  they  have  a  right  to  be  select. ' ' 

"Of  course,"  Millicent  acquiesced. 

"Yes,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  continued,  earnestly, 
"there  are  London  professional  men,  barristers,  you 
know,  and  solicitors"  (Mrs.  Kew-Barling  pronounced 
the  word  with  an  impressive  linger  on  the  first  sylla- 
ble), "and  merchants  in  a  very  large  way  of  business, 
not  to  speak  of  the  county  families ;  but  they  live  for 
the  most  part  on  the  outskirts." 

"Well,"  Millicent  said,  brightly,  "it  must  makeup 
a  very  pleasant  circle." 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  glanced  at  her,  almost  admonish- 
ingly,  as  at  one  who  was  treating  a  serious  subject 
altogether  too  lightly. 

"The  Winkworth  people  are  very  reserved,"  she 
said.  "It  is  not  easy  to  enter  the  most  select  circles. ' ' 

"But  pleasant  when  entered,"  Millicent  smiled. 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling' s  thin  face  clouded.  It  would  have 
been  a  pretty  face  but  for  a  look  of  strain  and  tire 
about  it.  She  sighed  wistfully. 

"Oh,  charmingly  pleasant,  I  should  think,"  she 
said,  with  a  thrill  in  her  voice.  "But  we  are  only 
quite  newcomers,  and  not  yet  privileged.  We  have 
only  been  three  years  in  Winkworth." 

"Oh!''  Millicent  said,  then  stopped  short  in  time, 
but  Mrs.  Kew-Barling' s  anxious  ear  detected  more 
than  "Oh!" 

"Three  years  is  not  at  all  long  for  Winkworth  peo- 
ple," she  asserted,  with  a  little  air  of  dignity.  "I  have 
heard  of  a  family — quite  an  aristocratic  family — who 
took  a  very  handsome  house,  with  extensive  grounds 
and  stabling  and  a  lodge  at  the  entrance,  and  Wink- 
worth  did  not  call  upon  them  for  four  years.  Think 
of  that,  Miss  Rivers — four  years. ' ' 


144        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

Millicent  murmuring  "Surprising!"  Mrs.  Kew-Barl- 
ing  took  heart  and  courage. 

"There,  I  thought  you  would  scarcely  believe  it! 
Nobody  would.  And  of  course  they  were  quite  irre- 
proachable. Indeed,  the  wife  was  the  daughter  of  a 
well-known  baronet,  and  the  man  himself  the  eldest 
son  of  a  good  old  county  family.  And,  as  I  tell  Mr. 
Kew-Barling,  though  my  own  papa  was  a  professional 
man — a  doctor  in  large  practice — his,  of  course,  can 
scarcely  be  called  a  profession — at  least,  not  a  learned 
profession. ' ' 

"No?"  Millicent  submitted. 

"No,  Mr.  Kew-Barling  is  a  stockbroker,"  Mrs. 
Kew-Barling  said,  diffidently.  "His  father  was  a 
banker,  and  very  highly  connected.  But,  unfortu- 
nately perhaps,  he  took  to  stockbroking.  So  that 
although,  of  course,  there  are  stockbrokers  in  Wink- 
worth  society,  we  need  not  be  surprised  if  Wiiikworth 
people  have  not  exactly  hastened  to  call.  Indeed,  we 
might  not  have  expected  them  to  call,  at  any  rate  for 
some  time,  only  that  friends  of  ours  are  related  to  the 
lady  who  is  quite  the  leader  of  society  here.  But  it 
takes  time  for  people  to  learn  about  one's  family  and 
credentials,  and  I  respect  them  all  the  more  for  being 
select." 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling' s  expression  was  by  this  time 
cheerful.  Millicent' s  confidence  and  encouraging 
sympathy,  and,  perhaps,  also  her  stylish  appearance, 
seemed  to  put  her  quite  in  spirits. 

"I  fancy  we  shall  not  have  long  to  wait  now,"  she 
said,  the  shadows  of  her  face  replaced  by  hopeful 
lights;  "and  then,  perhaps,  you  too  will  have  an 
opportunity  of  seeing  Winkworth  society,  Miss  Rivers 
— if  you  like  us,  and  I  hope  you  will  like  us. ' ' 

Millicent  was  sure  she  would.  She  stretched  a 
friendly  hand  for  little  Mrs.  Kew-Barling' s  small  one 
and  gave  it  a  hearty  squeeze. 

"I  am  sure  I  shall  be  very  happy  here,"  she  said. 

"Well,"  her  hostess  observed,  diffidently,  "I  am 
afraid  you  will  find  it  different  from  Lady  Kershaw'  s. ' ' 


WINKWORTH.  145 

Accompanying-  her  presently  to  her  room,  Mrs. 
Kew-Barling  stopped  behind  to  speak  to  the  smartly- 
capped  one. 

"Oh,  Parkins,"  she  said,  brightly,  "leave  the  tea- 
things.  It  is  rather  late,  but  somebody  might  call. ' ' 


10 


146  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER  XX. 
POPLAR  VILLA. 

My  expenditure  is  Me.  That  our  expenditure  and  our  charac- 
ter are  twain  is  the  vice  of  society. 

Mr.  Kew-Barling  was  a  strong-featured  man,  of  a 
dark  complexion  and  iron-gray  hair.  He  was  well- 
informed,  well-mannered,  and,  perhaps  more  impor- 
tant than  either,  he  was  excellently  well-groomed. 

A  matter  surely  unworthy  of  remark,  one  might 
consider  —  and  consider  wrongly  —  in  these  days  of 
culture  and  sanitation.  For  even  in  these  days  of  sani- 
tation, one  of  the  main  differences  between  the  upper- 
middle  and  the  uppermost  classes  is  this  matter  of 
grooming.  The  aristocrat  from  his  boyhood  upward  is 
so  scrupulously  tubbed,  and  brushed,  and  clipped,  as 
to  gain  an  immense  personal  advantage  over  his  mid- 
dle-class neighbor,  who  possibly  neglects  the  matu- 
tinal tub,  and  even  sometimes  shirks  his  shave.  The 
aristocrat  probably  omits  to  say  his  prayers,  while  his 
middle-class  neighbor  may  not ;  but  there  is  about  the 
well-grcomed  one  a  fine  aroma  of  physical  godliness 
which  is  not  to  be  attained,  alas !  by  the  most  punctil- 
ious devotions. 

Millicent  was  sitting  with  her  hostess  when  there 
came  a  sudden,  short,  sharp  rat-tat  at  the  door.  It 
was  followed  by  another,  and  a  sharper  one,  almost 
immediately. 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  started  forward  .with  a  solicitous 
look. 

"That  is  Mr.  Kew-Barling,"  she  said,  nervously. 
"I  will  open  the  door  myself.  I  can  hear  he  has  been 
worried  in  the  city." 

Millicent,  remaining  in  the  dusk  of  the  over-fur- 
nished drawing-room,  heard  the  latch  slip  back,  then 


POPLAR  VILLA.  147 

to  again,  heard  a  murmured  growl  and  the  swish  of  a 
bag  flung  forcibly  on  the  hall-chair. 

"Anybody  been?"  was  uttered  gruffly. 

"Nobody,  dear.     It  has  been  such  a  very  dull  day." 

"Umph!"  said  the  gruff  one. 

Then  Mrs.  Kew-Barling's  voice  was  heard  again, 
soothing  and  propitiatory. 

"What  is  she  like?"  demanded  Barling. 

Evidently  she  was  satisfactory. 

"Umph!"  said  he  again.  "Take  fifty  per  cent  off, 
I  suppose,  and  I  shall  be  somewhere  near  the 
mark. ' ' 

Then  he  came  in  with  a  "fifty  per  cent"  deprecia- 
tion in  his  eye. 

Millicent  rose  and  bowed.  Mr.  Kew-Barling  shook 
hands. 

"I  am  afraid  you  have  had  along  journey,"  he  said, 
civilly.  He  looked  worn  and  harassed. 

"I  am  not  tired,"  Millicent  responded.  "A  journey 
is  always  interesting." 

"Not  the  journey  between  London  and  here,':  he 
objected.  "There  is  never  time  to  get  up  a  decent 
pace  before  they  have  to  stop."  He  turned  to  his 
wife.  "Dinner  ready?" 

"It  will  be  by  the  time  you  have  brushed  your  hair, 
dear,"  she  suggested,  mildly. 

While  Mr.  Kew-Barling  brushed  his  hair,  Mrs.  Kew- 
Barling  made  his  apologies. 

"He  has  been  worried  in  the  city,"  she  said,  all  the 
anxious  lines  back  again  in  her  face.  "A  man  has 
terrible  responsibilities,  Miss  Rivers,  with  a  wife  and 
children  depending  on  him,  and  the  struggle  for  life 
so  cruel.  Naturally  he  has  the  best  temper  possible, 
but  they  seem  to  take  a  positive  delight  in  ruffling 
him  in  that  horrid  city." 

"Tomato  soup  again,"  the  ruffled  one  observed,  when 
Parkins  removed  the  cover.  He  served  Miss  Rivers 
and  his  wife. 

"Take  this  away,"  he  instructed  Parkins,  indicating 
his  plate. 

"Oh,  I'm  so  sorry,  dear,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  pleaded, 


148        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

with  a  tremulous  lip.     "You  found  it  so  refreshing  the 
other  evening,  you  know." 

"Yes,  as  a  change  from  lentil,"  Mr.  Kew-Barling 
said. 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  took  a  few  hurried  spoonfuls, 
then  set  her  spoon  down,  and  strove  not  to  look  hastily 
at  Millicent. 

"Ah,  soles,"  Mr.  Kew-Barling  said  more  placably. 
' '  Now  we  are  doing  better. ' ' 

He  entered  upon  a  smoother  mood,  and  presently 
told  them  pieces  of  news  he  had  picked  up  in  town. 

"There  is  talk  of  war,"  he  said,  sombrely.  "It  has 
been  bothering  me  a  bit.  If  it  comes,  all  those  Sirva 
bonds  will  be  down  at  zero.  You  didn't  write  about 
the  house  at  Brighton?" 

"No,  dear,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  returned,  with  a 
sidelong  glance  toward  Millicent. 

"Oh,  well,  don't  for  a  week  or  so.  We  will  see  how 
things  go." 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  looked  uneasy.  Then  she  bright- 
ened with  an  effort. 

"Baby  gets  stronger  every  day,"  she  said,  cheer- 
fully. "He  had  quite  a  nice  color  in  his  cheeks  this 
afternoon ;  and  Rob  and  Ruby  are  so  sturdy — they  can 
manage  perfectly  without  sea-air. ' ' 

Mr.  Kew-Barling  glanced  up  surreptitiously  from 
his  plate  to  his  wife's  thin  face.  His  own  was  dark. 

"A  breath  of  sea-air  wouldn't  do  you  any  harm," 
he  said,  with  a  savage  rasp  of  feeling  in  his  voice. 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  laid  her  thin  fingers  softly  over 
his  big  hand.  Her  mouth  quivered,  but  her  eyes 
were  bright. 

"I!"  she  said.  "Oh,  I  don't  need  sea-air,  Kew.  I 
am  perfectly  strong." 

Mr.  Kew-Barling,  with  a  shame-faced  movement 
toward  Millicent,  gently  disengaged  his  hand. 

"Roast  chicken,"  he  exclaimed,  "and  done  to  per- 
fection. Cook  has  surpassed  herself  to-night,  dear." 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  exulted. 

"I  thought  we  would  not  have  a  repetition  of  last 
evening,"  she  said,  "and  I  saw  to  it  myself." 


POPLAR  VILLA.  149 

"There  are  not  many  men  with  such  a  wife  as  I 
have,  Miss  Rivers,"  Kew-Barling  said.  His  strong 
face  softened.  "There  are  not  many  things  Mrs. 
Barling  cannot  do,  from  operatic  music  to  cooking. 
And  I  am  afraid  there  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  the 
adage — 'Feed  the  brute.'  ' 

"I  am  sure  you  are  not  in  the  least  like  that,"  pro- 
tested Mrs.  Kew.  "And  a  man  has  a  right  to  expect 
things  nice  when  he  has  been  slaving  all  day  in  that 
detestable  city.  Such  stuffy  dens  of  offices  as  they 
have,  Miss  Rivers!  It  is  a  cruel  life." 

"I  assure  you,  my  dear,"  Kew-Barling  said,  with  a 
laugh,  "we  haven't  much  time  to  think  about  the 
atmosphere." 

"Kew,"  his  wife  entreated,  "now,  did  you  make 
time  for  a  good  lunch?" 

Kew  turned  crusty. 

"Molly,"  he  insisted,  "you  just  mind  your  own 
affairs.  If  I  can't  be  trusted  at  my  time  of  life — " 

"Oh,  you  know  you  can't.  You  never  think  about 
yourself. ' ' 

Barling  laughed  harshly. 

"They'd  tell  you  a  different  story  in  the  city." 

"Well,  a  man  has  to  hold  his  own  in  the  world, 
hasn't  he,  Miss  Rivers?"  the  man's  wife  appealed  hotly. 

Millicent  assented  with  an  air  of  experience.  She 
had  been  wondering  that  little  Mrs.  Kew-Barling 
should  be  called  "Molly."  "Molly"  stood  in  her  mind 
for  laughter,  and  smiles,  and  piquant  irresponsibility, 
and  Mrs.  Kew-Barling — well,  Mrs.  Kew's  eyes  were 
gray  and  soft,  and  the  pupils  had  a  pretty  trick  of 
dilating,  and  when  she  smiled,  two  engaging  dimples 
stole  into  her  cheeks,  despite  their  thinness.  Her 
hair,  before  it  faded,  must  have  been  very  charming, 
even  now  there  were  golden  lights  in  it — even  now, 
good  gracious,  she  was  under  thirty!  No  woman 
under  thirty,  Millicent  decided  a  little  irritably,  had  a 
right  to  wear  such  anxious  lines  and  to  be  so  pathet- 
ically wan. 

"If  you  didn't  hold  your  own  in  the  city,  Kew," 
Mrs.  Kew  continued,  in  a  tense  voice,  "you  know 


ISO        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

they'd  just  trample  you  under — trample  you  under 
like— like  rubbish!" 

"Oh,  well,  I  don't  suppose  anybody  would  stop  to 
pick  me  up,"  Mr.  Barling  said,  philosophically.  "A 
man  has  got  to  keep  his  legs. ' ' 

"Yet  they  have  wives  and  children  of  their  own," 
she  persisted. 

"That's  maybe  the  reason  of  it,"  Mr.  Barling 
returned,  reflectively. 

Millicent  began  to  feel  quite  hysterical.  It  had 
never  before  occurred  to  her  that  there  might  be  trag- 
edy beneath  the  commonplace  of  business  life,  that 
commerce  was  a  man-made,  man-manipulated  mill, 
within  which  a  false  step  or  careless  movement  might 
fling  the  man  among  its  cogs  and  cranks  and  break  his 
life  and  limbs.  At  home  she  had  never  had  a  hint  of 
this.  But  her  father  had  been  signally  successful.  It 
struck  her  that  possibly  the  Kew-Barlings  were  not 
altogether  successful.  Yet  their  house  was  well  fur- 
nished and  things  were  nicely  done. 

Then,  with  a  sudden  young  impatience,  she  shelved 
the  whole  question.  Broad-shouldered  Mr.  Barling 
was  surely  capable  of  managing  his  own  affairs. 

She  finished  the  last  of  her  apple  charlotte,  then 
created  a  diversion  by  a  lively  account  of  her  terror 
lest  the  small  boy  who  had  come  to  her  rescue  on  the 
steps  should  have  found  his  way  down  the  bulldog's 
cavernous  mouth. 

Kew- Barling  laughed. 

"Oh,  Punch  stands  anything  from  Rob,"  he  said. 
"There  was  a  strong  smell  of  scorching  one  day  last 
summer,  and  I  went  into  the  nursery,  and  found  the 
dog  lying  on  his  back,  patiently  blinking  the  tears  out 
of  his  eyes,  while  Rob  ironed  his  shirt-front  for  him 
with  an  iron  hot  enough  to  singe  the  hair  right  down 
to  the  skin." 

When  they  were  leaving  the  dining-room  Mrs.  Kew 
lingered. 

"What  is  wrong,  little  woman?"  Millicent  heard  her 
host  inquire.  "Don't  you  think  you  will  get  on  with 
her?" 


POPLAR  VILLA.  151 

"Oh,  Kew,  it  isn't  that,"  a  pathetic  voice  replied, 
"only  I  had  such  a  disappointment.  A  carriage 
stopped  before  the  door,  I  thought  even  it  might  be 
Mrs.  Askew-Hickox,  because  there  were  two  roan 
horses,  and  Parkins  came  in  and  told  me — I  was  put- 
ting on  my  pretty  tea-gown — and  it  was  all  a  mistake. 
They  had  come  to  the  wrong  house." 

"Well,  damn  them!"  Mr.  Kew-Barling  cried, 
fiercely.  "Who  wants  them  to  call  if  they  don't  want 
to?" 

"Oh,  Kew,  dear,"  his  wife  faltered,  "it  would  be  so 
nice  to  have  some  nice  friends." 

"It  would  be  livelier,"  Mr.  Barling  growled. 


"Of  course  they  must  soon  begin  to  call,"  Mrs. 
Kew-Barling  told  Millicent  later  in  the  evening.  Mr. 
Kew-Barling  had  gone  to  his  study  to  pore  there  over 
the  contents  of  the  before-mentioned  black  bag. 
"Only  it  has  seemed  such  a  tedious  time.  I  assure 
you  I  have  grown  quite  thin  with  disappointment.  I 
don't  mind  telling  you,  because  I  feel  so  much  at 
home  with  you,  as  though  I  had  known  you  all  my 
life.  But  you  know  where  we  lived  before  we  had  only 
quite  a  small  house — you  see,  Mr.  Kew-Barling  had 
his  way  to  make,  and  it  has  been  rather  uphill  work, 
and  of  course  then  we  hardly  expected  people  at  all 
smart  to  call  upon  us.  But  when  we  could  take  such 
a  nice  house  as  this,  in  a  very  select  neighborhood — 
indeed,  perhaps,  we  ought  not  to  be  paying  quite  so 
high  a  rent  as  we  do — but  we  have  been  so  anxious 
for  a  pleasant  circle  of  friends.  Mr.  Kew-Barling  is 
naturally  sociable.  He  won't  admit  it,  because  he's 
proud,  poor  fellow ;  but  nothing  would  make  him  so 
happy  as  to  have  a  man  drop  in  now  and  again  for  a 
friendly  smoke,  or  to  dinner,  or  to  be  asked  out  for  an 
informal  game  of  billiards,  or  a  hand  at  whist.  And 
we  seem  to  have  waited  so  long.  It  really  has  begun 
to  tell  on  him.  He  gets  quite  moped." 

"Oh,"  Millicent  consoled  her,  "somebody  will  call, 
and  you  will  soon  make  a  circle. ' ' 


152  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"The  clergyman  called,  of  course,  because  we  attend 
church  most  regularly.  And  the  doctor's  wife  called; 
but,  unfortunately,  it  was  the  wrong  doctor.  He  isn't 
the  fashionable  doctor,  but  we  did  not  know  that,  and 
I  sent  for  him  one  night  in  a  hurry  when  baby  had 
convulsions,  because  his  wife  was  such  a  nice  woman. 
And  Mr.  Kew-Barling  said,  as  he  was  so  attentive,  and 
seemed  clever,  he  was  not  going  to  change  him  for  all 
the  Winkworths  in  the  wo'rld.  He  is  very  determined, 
Mr.  Kew-Barling  is,  and  I  didn't  think  myself  it  would 
have  been  treating  Dr.  Barnby  nicely.  But  perhaps  it 
put  us  wrong  with  people.  You  see,  Dr.  Fancourt,  the 
doctor  who  attends  the  smartest  folk,  charges  seven- 
and-sixpenny  fees,  and  Dr.  Barnby  only  charges  five, 
and  sends  out  his  own  medicine.  But,  then,  you  can't 
know  these  things  when  you  come  fresh  to  a  place. " 

"Well,  I  am  sure  I  should  never  trouble  about  peo- 
ple who  would  be  prevented  from  calling  for  such 
contemptible  reasons,"  Millicent  said,  sturdily. 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  shook  her  head  gravely  above  the 
small  frock  she  was  embroidering. 

"Ah,  my  dear,"  she  said,  sententiously,  "when  you 
have  seen  as  much  of  the  world  as  I  have,  you  won't 
expect  your  neighbors  to  be  perfect.  But  that  won't 
keep  you  from  feeling  lonely  when  they  live  next  door 
to  you  for  years,  or  in  the  next  street,  and  pass  you 
day  after  day  without  looking  once  in  your  direction. 
And  even  when  baby  came,  and  they  thought  I  should 
have  died,  nobody  so  much  as  called  to  ask  if  I  were 
better,  or  sent  me  a  flower.  " 

"Well,  I  think  they  are  heartless,  unfeeling  brutes," 
cried  Millicent. 

"Oh,  no,"  Mrs.  Barling  said,  mildly,  "it  is  only  that 
they  are  so  very  select.  And  it  is  not  as  if  we  even 
kept  a  carriage,  or  could  afford  to  entertain.  And 
then,  of  course,  it  was  most  unfortunate  that  I  sent 
for  the  wrong  doctor.  A  very  little  thing  puts  you 
wrong  with  people  who  are,  and  have  a  right  to  be, 
select." 

Honest  Millicent  blurted,  "Say  snobbish,"  whereat 
Mrs.  Kew-Barling  was  seriously  offended. 


POPLAR  VILLA.  153 

"I  must  have  given  you  a  very  wrong  impression  of 
Wink  worth  society,"  she  said,  with  dignity,  "that  you 
should  apply  such  a  word  to  it." 

She  became  all  at  once  reserved,  as  though  she  felt 
her  confidence  betrayed.  Millicent  withdrew  her 
remark  with  tact  and  feeling.  But  Mrs.  Kew-Barling 
had  been  touched  on  a  sensitive  spot,  her  pride  in  the 
selectness  of  Winkworth  society  rising  genuinely 
above  her  soreness  that  that  selectness  excluded  her. 

"Good  gracious!"  Millicent  fretted  in  the  solitude 
of  her  bedroom,  "I  feel  as  Alice  in  Wonderland  did 
when  the  house  so  shrank  that  she  had  to  put  one  foot 
up  the  chimney,  and  an  arm  out  of  the  window.  Will 
Winkworth  ever  be  big  enough  to  hold  a  person  who 
has  known  dear  Lady  Kershaw  and — and  the  major?" 

Then  she  cried  herself  to  sleep,  and  dreamed  that 
Mr.  Kew-Barling  was  being  trampled  by  a  jeering 
crowd  of  ruffians  in  the  city,  while  Mrs.  Kew-Barling 
pushed  and  struck  at  them  with  impotent  hands,  and 
Punch  roared  murder  and  defiance  out  of  his  blood- 
red  jaws. 


154  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER   XXI. 
ROBBY  AND  RUBY. 

"There's  no  dew  left  on  the  daisies  and  clover, 

There's  no  rain  left  in  heaven ; 
I've  said  my  'seven  times'  over  and  over, 
Seven  times  one  are  seven. 

"I  am  old,  so  old  I  can  write  a  letter; 

My  birthday  lessons  are  done ; 
The  lambs  play  always,  they  know  no  better, 
They  are  only  one  times  one." 

Millicent  awoke  with  the  sense  of  an  eye  upon  her. 
She  glanced  round  her  neat  room,  still  half  asleep,  till 
her  looks  lighted  on  a  little  vase  of  flowers  placed 
beside  her  bed.  She  caught  her  breath.  She  was 
wide  awake  at  once.  The  Towers,  with  its  cultivation 
and  repose,  the  shabbiness  which  had  become  so  dear 
to  her,  were  things  turned  down  on  the  leaf  of  yester- 
day— never  to  recur. 

She  still  had  that  sense  of  an  eye  upon  her.  She 
turned  instinctively  in  the  direction  whence  she  felt 
the  rays  of  observation  strike.  The  eye  was  black 
and  rolling.  The  eye  was  mischievous  and  truculent. 
Below  it,  flippantly  askew  in  a  great  underhung  jaw, 
she  recognized  a  slipper,  one  of  a  pair  she  had  placed 
the  previous  evening  at  her  bedside  in  preparation 
for  an  early  rising. 

Seeing  himself  observed,  the  marauder  assumed  an 
ingenuous  air.  "Stretch  down  your  hand  and  take  it, 
my  dear, ' '  he  appeared  to  invite  her  blandly.  ' '  I  am 
your  very  humble  servant. ' ' 

But  a  slight  movement  on  her  part  set  him  vaulting 
backward,  while  the  mischief  in  his  eye  took  flame. 
"Now,  then,"  he  avowed  himself,  "come  on,  and  let's 
see  who's  master!" 

"Punch!"  she  sued,  seductively. 

"Governess!"  he  retorted,  with  a  flinty  eye. 


ROBBY  AND  RUBY.  155 

"Good  dog!"  she  appealed. 

"Bah!"  he  snorted. 

A  burst  of  whispering  and  muffled  laughter  at  the 
door  apprised  her  that  Punch  had  reinforcements.  A 
portion  of  white  night-shirt  and  pink  leg  betrayed  the 
sailor  hero  of  the  previous  day. 

Punch  departed,  trophy  in  mouth,  to  return  straight- 
way without  it.  He  stood  a  moment  dubious,  then, 
with  a  sudden  flank  movement,  darted  in,  secured  the 
other  slipper,  vanished,  and  came  back  with  empty 
jaws. 

Without  more  ado,  he  seized  a  garment  hanging 
over  a  chair  and  dragged  it,  with  a  brutal  disregard  of 
frills  and  spotlessness,  along  the  floor  and  out  at  the 
door. 

He  returned  for  a  stocking,  having  disposed  of  which 
he  came  back  for  its  fellow. 

"At  this  rate,"  Millicent  ejaculated  in  dismay,  see- 
ing the  black  empty  foot  trail  helplessly  over  the 
threshold,  "I  shall  have  to  go  down  undressed!" 

Strangled  shrieks  of  laughter  greeted  each  exploit ; 
bare  feet  pattered  up  and  down  in  ecstasies;  there 
were  sounds  as  of  small,  soft  persons  executing  war 
dances,  turning  somersaults,  and  writhing  on  the 
passage  mats  in  vain  convulsive  efforts  to  relieve  a 
sense  of  humor  which  had  attained  agonizing  propor- 
tions. For  Punch  in  his  zeal,  possibly  exceeding  his 
instructions,  had  snatched  a  chair  by  an  inoffensive 
leg,  and,  with  fierce  mutterings  and  imprecations,  had 
dragged  it  to  the  threshold,  where,  getting  entangled 
with  the  door,  it  remained  fast  jammed.  The  more 
he  growled  and  tugged,  the  more  firmly  it  resisted  and 
the  less  successfully  restrained  the  outside  whisper- 
ings and  laughter  grew.  Then  a  terrible  thing  hap- 
pened!— the  leg  came  off.  The  chair  was  mainly 
ornamental ;  certainly  it  had  never  been  intended  for 
the  brutal  usage  to  which  it  was  now  being  subjected, 
and,  with  a  mournful  snap,  it  parted  with  a  limb. 

To  judge  by  the  dog's  immediate  and  tragic  change 
of  front,  it  appeared  that  this  was  not  his  first  offense 


156         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

in  furniture-dismembering,  nor  possibly  his  first  expe- 
rience of  painful  consequences,  for  no  sooner  had  he 
recovered  breath  from  the  impetus  imparted  to  him  by 
the  sudden  yielding  of  the  joint,  than  he  stood  in  a 
pose  of  abject  grief,  the  trophy  of  his  prowess,  and, 
alas!  the  evidence  of  his  guilt,  athwart  his  jaws.  He 
set  it  down  gingerly  and  eyed  it.  Then,  the  question 
of  penalties  obtruding,  he  gave  vent  to  a  mournful 
howl.  He  glanced  about  for  counsel,  but  his  counsel- 
ors, seeing  the  fell  results  of  their  temerity,  had  fled 
precipitately  back  to  bed. 

He  lay  down  with  a  malevolent  eye  on  the  proofs  of 
his  ill-deeds  and  fell  a-sobbing.  Suddenly  he  whined 
with  pleasure,  a  fine  intelligence  flashed  into  his  face. 
Then,  with  a  furtive  glance  toward  Millicent,  watch- 
ing him  from  her  pillows,  he  took  the  chair  leg  in  his 
mouth,  stole  with  it  to  her  bed,  deposited  it  carefully 
beneath,  and  departed  with  an  abashed  and  shameful 
tail  between  his  legs. 

He  had  killed  two  birds — he  had  saved  his  own  skin, 
and  the  governess  would  be  beaten  for  his  sins! 

He  returned  to  his  basket  in  the  hall,  and  doubtless 
simulated  guileless  sleep. 


Millicent  made  the  acquaintance  of  her  pupils  at 
breakfast;  they  were  rosy  and  smiling — beautiful  chil- 
dren. 

They  bore  no  traces  of  their  early  morning  fray, 
though  they  listened  with  some  apprehensiveness  on 
each  occasion  when  she  volunteered  speech.  The  lie 
direct  to  any  charge  she  should  lay  at  their  door  was 
on  their  lips,  and  Punch  kept  a  furtive  watch  upon 
her  from  the  hearth-rug.  But  she  preferred  no  charge. 

"I  don't  kiss  governesses,"  Rob  explained,  suc- 
cinctly, when  she  bent  her  head  to  him. 

Ruby,  a  cherubic  person  of  four,  did  not  kiss  gov- 
ernesses either,  but  she  presented  a  rosy  cheek,  and 
very  punctiliously  scrubbed  off  the  kiss  deposited 
there. 


ROBBY  AND  RUBY.  157 

"I  am  afraid  you  will  find  them  very  naughty  chil- 
dren," Mrs.  Kew-Barling  acquainted  her,  helplessly. 
(Mr.  Kew-Barling  had  departed  to  the  city  by  an  early 
train.)  "Their  last  governess  could  do  nothing  with 
them." 

' '  Miss  Scamp, ' '  the  cherub  cried,  shaking  a  halo  of 
golden  curls,  and  fixing  an  insolent  gleam  on  Millicent 
out  of  limpid  eyes. 

Rob  choked  with  his  mouth  full  of  bread  and  mar- 
malade. 

"Every  governess'  name  isn't  'Scamp,'  you  silly," 
he  spluttered. 

' '  You  naughty,  rude  children, ' '  their  mother  expos- 
tulated. "Their  last  governess'  name  was  Camp, 
Miss  Rivers,  and  do  what  she  would  they  always 
insisted  on  calling  her  'Scamp.'  It  was  most  embar- 
rassing. I  don't  think  she  quite  understood  children ; 
they  led  her  a  terrible  life." 

"Scamp,  Scamp, 
Lighted  the  lamp 
And  flew  upstairs  on  her  ugly  old  gamp ! " 

Rob  blurted,  with  the  abashed  air  of  a  person  moved 
to  recite  his  own  compositions. 

"Ugly  ole  gamp,"  the  cherub  echoed,  glaring  at 
Millicent  as  though  she  were  calling  names. 

Punch  came  out  of  his  corner  with  a  glistening  eye. 
The  war-whoop  tingled  in  every  fibre  of  his  squat 
frame ;  it  was  the  signal  of  attack  upon  governesses, 
and  he  answered  to  it  like  a  veteran. 

"Punch,  you  wicked  dog,  lie  down,"  his  mistress 
insisted. 

He  obeyed,  with  a  glint  upon  Rob  which  said 
plainly,  "The  old  lady  will  soon  be  gone.  Operations 
deferred!" 

"Now,  see  what  you  can  make  of  my  name,"  Milli- 
cent said,  cheerfully,  addressing  the  poet.  "My  name 
is  Rivers." 

"We  can  call  you  Mountain,"  he  returned,  some- 
what nonplussed. 


158         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Oh,  but  that  would  be  silly,  and  it  wouldn't  rhyme. 
Now  see  what  I  can  do: 

"  Millicent  Rivers 
Took  darts  from  her  quivers, 
And  shot  Robert  to — to — " 

"I  know,"  Robert  blurted,  " — shot  Robert  to  smith  - 
ers. ' ' 

' '  Bobbles  to  snivers, ' '  Ruby  gurgled. 

Then  Robert  turned  crusty.  He  eyed  Millicent  vin- 
dictively. This  was  taking  the  wind  out  of  a  fellow's 
sails  indeed!  He  would  like  to  know  how  they  were 
going  to  successfully  harass  a  person  callous  enough  to 
invent  rhymes  against  herself. 

"You  can't  shoot,"  he  said,  aggressively. 

"Scamp  tant  soot,"  echoed  Ruby,  hurling  a  bread- 
crumb violently  in  the  foe's  direction. 

"Oh,  can't  I?"  Millicent  retorted,  stoutly.  "You 
try  me  after  breakfast.  We  will  stand  Bobbles  on  a 
chair  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  and  give  me  his  bow 
and  arrows,  and  let  me  have  three  good  shots  at  him. " 

Ruby  glanced  from  the  one  to  the  other  dubiously. 
Then  her  sporting  instincts  got  the  better  of  her  sis- 
terly ones. 

"Free  s'ots  at  Bobbles,"  she  cried,  clapping  her 
hands.  "Bobbles  to  smivers. " 

"No,  I'm  not,  you  little  liar!"  "Bobbles"  mumbled 
with  a  red  face.  "I  should  set  Punch  on  her." 

Punch,  lying  before  the  fire,  glanced  back  over  his 
prick-ears  at  the  sound  of  his  name.  "Rely  on  me," 
his  glance  said.  "I'm  game  for  anything." 

"Oh,  you  naughty,  wicked  boy ! ' '  Rob' s  mother  cried, 
querulously.  "What  can  I  do  with  you?  You  will 
have  to  be  sent  to  school. ' '  She  turned  to  Millicent. 
"He  has  some  tiresome  cousins,"  she  apologized, 
"rough,  spoilt  boys,  who  teach  him  the  naughtiest 
tricks. ' ' 

"If  I  went  to  school,  would  Punch  go?"  Rob 
demanded. 

Punch  tumbled  up  from  the  hearthrug,  and,  trotting 
over  to  his  mistress,  stood  looking  into  her  face. 


ROBBY  AND  RUBY.  159 

"Come,  now,"  he  insisted,  with  a  peremptory  wag- 
gle of  his  tail,  "answer  me  that.  Should  I  go?" 

"You  certainly  would  not,  you  tiresome  creature," 
Mrs.  Barling  said,  interpreting  his  eloquent  interro- 
gation. 

"You  go  and  lie  down.  Who  asked  you  to  inter- 
fere?" Robert  snubbed  him,  darting  a  fist  in  the  air 
in  his  direction. 

Whereat  Punch,  effectually  crushed,  returned  to  his 
place  on  the  hearth,  and  lay  down  with  a  great  jaw 
resting  on  his  forepaws,  sniffing  and  sobbing. 

"Oh,  I  do  hope  he  won't  take  to  snapping  at  you, 
Miss  Rivers,"  Mrs.  Barling  sighed.  "He  led  Miss 
Sc — Miss  Camp  a  terrible  life,  snapping  at  her  ankles. 
He  used  to  lie  in  wait  for  her  in  unexpected  places 
and  dark  corners,  and  then  dart  out  and  snap  round 
her  ankles  like — well,  really  like  a  crocodile." 

"When  she  s'rieked  it  was  like  slate  penc'les  going 
wrong  on  a  slate,"  Bobbles  said,  grinning  from  ear 
to  ear. 

"Pensoos  on  a  syate!"  gurgled  Ruby,  dimpling  like 
a  holy  cherub. 

Punch  broke  off  short  in  a  sob  because  he  was  not 
going  to  school  to  lick  his  black-leaded  lips  with  a  gory 
tongue  at  the  savor  of  a  recollection. 

"I  don't  believe  he  would  have  hurt  her  for^the 
world, ' '  his  mistress  resumed,  shaking  a  mild  finger  at 
him;  "but  she  was  frightened  to  death  of  him." 

"She  went  like  this,"  Rob  volunteered,  springing 
to  his  feet,  and  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  room. 
He  screwed  his  voice  to  a  shrill  falsetto,  and  stood  on 
tiptoes,  making  savage  little  ineffectual  darts  with  one 
hand,  while  with  the  other  he  clutched  imaginary 
skirts  about  him.  "Go  'way,  you  vicious  brute!  Go 
'way,  you  black-faced  monster!  Go  'way!  go  'way! 
go  'way!  Ain't  you  ashamed  of  such  manners?  Send 
for  a  policeman !  Burglars !  Thieves !" 

"Fieves  an'  p'licemen!"  shouted  Ruby,  capering 
gleefully  in  imitation,  and  catching  her  petticoats 
about  her  after  a  fashion  which  was,  let  us  hope  in 


160        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

the  interests  of  modesty,  an  exaggeration  of  Miss 
Camp's  original  performance. 

Punch  was  not  behindhand  in  his  part  of  the  imper- 
sonation, but  darted  in  and  out,  snapping  his  formid- 
able jaws,  within  an  ace  of  their  small  legs,  with  an 
alarming- sounding  iteration,  which,  if  it  were  at  all  a 
faithful  reproduction  of  the  circumstances,  perfectly 
explained  the  apprehensions  of  Miss  Camp. 

Even  Mrs.  Barling  could  not  keep  from  laughter, 
while  this  chorus  of  falsetto  appeals  for  police  protec- 
tion, mingling  with  histrionic  growlings  and  choppings 
of  jaws,  made  the  breakfast-room  a  scene  of  noisy  pan- 
tomime. 

"I  can't  think  how  he  keeps  from  biting  them,"  she 
said.  "You  might  think  he  would  snap  their  legs  off. 
Yet  I've  only  once  known  him  give  Robby  a  scratch 
— just  the  least  accidental  scratch  on  the  knee ;  and 
he  whined  and  whimpered  over  it  for  quite  a  time. 
To  be  sure,  Robby  broke  Ruby's  big  doll's  head  over 
him  for  it, ' '  she  added,  smiling. 

"If  you  please,  'm,  the  greengrocer,  'm,"  the  cook 
said,  appearing  in  the  doorway.  "And  turnips  is  rose 
to  a  penny  each ;  and  he  says  when  is  Mr.  Kubarlin' 
agoin'  to  settle  his  little  account." 

"The  check  was  sent  by  post  this  morning,"  Mrs. 
Kew-Barling  asserted,  with  dignity;  "and  I  am  just 
now  coming  to  the  kitchen.  You  will  find  everything 
ready  for  school  in  the  dining-room,  Miss  Rivers. 
The  children  don't  do  much,  of  course.  Even  for 
their  ages  I  am  afraid  they  are  sadly  backward.  Now, 
Robby,  I  depend  on  you  to  behave  nicely,  and  keep 
Punch  in  order,  or  he  will  have  to  be  chained  in  the 
yard.  Miss  Rivers  has  kindly  come  a  hundred  miles 
to  teach  you,  so  mind  you  are  good  to  her." 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  closed  the  door  behind  her. 

"I  say,  you  get  paid  for  teaching  us,  don't  you?" 
Robert  questioned,  bluntly. 

Millicent  nodded. 

"I  say,  you'd  better  not  charge  too  much,  you 
know,"  he  insisted,  "else  we  shan't  be  able  to  go  to 
the  seaside." 


ROBBY  AND   RUBY  161 

This  was  a  new  aspect  of  things,  and  one  not  alto- 
gether tending  to  the  governess'  peace  of  mind. 

"I  won't  charge  too  much,"  she  said,  quietly. 

"Dad's  got  heaps  and  heaps  of  money,  of  course, 
enough  to  have  a  golden  house  if  he  wanted,"  Robert 
vaunted;  "but  we've  got  to  take  care  of  our  best 
clothes,  mother  says,  'cause  father  works  for  'em." 

"  'Eaps  of  money  dad's  got — as  much  as  vis," 
repeated  Ruby,  joyously,  stretching  her  chubby  arms 
to  their  widest  extent,  and  shaking  her  golden  curls 
impressively. 

"Punch  and  I'll  go  one  day  in  the  city,  an'  fight 
those  chaps  who're  always  takin'  father's  money,  and 
stopping  us  goin'  to  the  sea. ' ' 

"An'  Yuby  too,"  echoed  that  person  valiantly, 
clenching  her  fat  fists;  "ven  jump  in  a  tyain  an'  dig 
wiv  spades. ' ' 

It  needed  a  good  deal  of  persuasion  to  reduce  these 
champions  to  the  commonplace  of  spelling-books,  and 
when  Millicent  would  have  added  the  mild  coercion 
of  carrying  "Yuby"  nolens  volens  to  her  place  at  the 
table,  a  menacing  snarl  from  Punch,  and  a  look  on 
his  ugly  face  which  showed  that  his  ugliness  was 
based  on  character  moved  her  to  restore  the  rosy  one 
to  liberty  again. 

Finally,  however,  they  were  persuaded  to  their  tasks 
by  an  adroit  and  convincing  representation  that  unless 
Rob  could  do  sums  he  would  never  be  able  to  help  his 
father  to  count  the  heaps  and  heaps  of  money  in  the 
city,  and  so  prevent  the  chaps  from  stealing  it. 

Even  with  this  inducement,  however,  education  was 
somewhat  at  a  standstill,  for  Rob  insisted  on  it  that 
he  had  never  learned  his  letters,  and  proposed  learn- 
ing five  of  them  for  his  morning's  work. 

Eventually  Millicent  gave  up  any  attempt  at  tute- 
lage, and  proceeded  to  win  her  pupils'  confidence  by 
telling  them  stories.  There  were  giants  in  the  stories, 
and  hideous  monsters  with  double  rows  of  well-filed 
teeth,  who  spent  their  time  devouring  children  inca- 
pable of  reading  words  of  two  syllables. 

"  'Now,'  said  King  Ogre,  rolling  his  horrible  eyes 


162        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

and  sharpening  his  knife,  'a  boy  who  is  well  educated 
always  disagrees  with  me.  If  you  can  write  your 
name  and  say  the  six  times  multiplication  table  I  shall 
take  very  good  care  not  to  chew  you  up. ' ' 

"An 'could  he?"  queried  Robert,  breathlessly. 

Millicent  shook  her  head  portentously.  "He  had 
had  several  governesses,"  she  said,  "but  he  would 
never  do  his  lessons. " 

"Did  a  giant  eat  'im?"  demanded  Ruby,  with  big 
eyes. 

Millicent  nodded,  shuddering  dramatically. 

"An*  did  he  make  him  sick?"  insisted  Robby,  lit- 
erally. 

She  shook  her  head. 

Robert  looked  grave. 

"Even  if  he'd  been  swallowed,  if  the  giant  was  sick, " 
he  said,  reflectively,  "he  might  have  come  up  alive  like 
Jonah.  I  think  I  should  like  to  make  a  giant  sick, ' ' 
he  added. 

"Yuby  make  a  giant  sick,  too,"  echo  urged. 

"The  giant  cut  him  into  little  bits  with  his  big  sharp 
knife,"  his  monitress  insisted. 

"Oh,  well,"  said  Robert,  though  his  expression  was 
not  altogether  easy,  "there  aren't  any  giants  now, 
you  know. ' ' 

Nevertheless,  he  put  searching  questions  as  to  the 
length  of  time  it  would  take  to  learn  the  multiplication 
table,  and  whether  one  couldn't  learn  the  six  times 
table  without  learning  those  preceding  it,  likewise  if 
a  chap  couldn't  be  taught  to  write  his  name  without 
knowing  how  to  write  anything  else. 

Then,  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  assenting,  they  started  for 
a  walk,  the  children  having  first  been  subjected  to  a 
most  scrupulous  survey  as  regarded  their  clothes. 
Even  then  it  was  discovered  at  the  last  moment  that 
Ruby,  instead  of  putting  on  her  one-digited  gloves, 
had  slipped  them  slyly  into  a  tiny  pocket. 

"Good  gracious,"  cried  her  mother,  rescuing  them 
therefrom,  '  'I  should  like  to  know  what  Mrs.  Askew^ 
Hickox  would  think  of  you  if  she  met  you  without 
gloves!" 


ROBBY  AND   RUBY.  163 

Punch  stood  ruefully  upon  the  doorstep  watching 
them  depart.  He  sniffed  and  snuffed  dismally.  His 
broad  white  shirt-front  heaved,  while  the  tears  in  his 
eyes  threatened  to  destroy  the  starchy  integrity  of  that 
conventional  attire. 

"Miss  Camp  would  never  take  him,"  Mrs.  Kew- 
Barling  said,  with  a  sympathetic  eye  on  his  distress. 
'  'She  did  not  consider  him  genteel. " 

"May  he  come?"  Millicent  pleaded.  "I  shall  be 
delighted  to  take  him — if  I  can  manage  him." 

"Oh,  he  behaves  perfectly,"  Mrs.  Barling  answered, 
pleased,  "and  he  needs  exercise." 

If  you  had  seen  the  frenzied  joy  in  Punch's  eye  at 
the  intimation  that  he  too  might  go,  and  divined  there- 
from the  daily  cross  he  daily  laid  at  the  door  of  Miss 
Camp's  gentility,  I  think  you  would  have  forgiven 
him  certain  ankle-snappings. 

No  dog  of  spirit  assents  unoffended  to  the  imputa- 
tion that  he  is  not  sufficiently  genteel  to  follow  hum- 
bly at  a  fellow-creature's  heels. 


164  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER   XXII. 
THE  RELIGION  OF   APPEARANCES. 

The  world,  the  world, 
All  ear  and  eye,  with  such  a  stupid  heart ! 

By  the  time  Millicent  had  been  domiciled  a  week  in 
the  Kew-Barling  household,  she  had  learned  the  rea- 
son for  its  mistress'  forfeiture  of  her  right  to  be 
described  as  "Molly." 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  was  one  of  that  immense  army  of 
women  who  offer  their  human  lives  in  daily  sacrifice 
upon  the  altar  of  appearances. 

In  limited  circumstances,  she  spent  her  heart's 
blood — the  term  is  not  exaggerated — in  a  life-long 
endeavor  to  appear  to  her  neighbors  to  be  better  off 
than  she  was. 

By  profession  a  church-woman,  in  her  soul  of  souls 
she  acknowledged  no  other  creed  than  the  creed  of 
Respectability  1  And  for  the  maintenance  of  this,  she 
endured  a  martyrdom,  the  sum  of  whose  daily  incre- 
ment was  a  torture  a  hundredfold  more  rigorous  than 
a  mere  period  of  suffering  on  red-hot  plowshares  could 
have  been.  For  this  religion  of  Respectability — the 
actual  religion  of  the  British  Isles — in  its  pitiless 
exactions,  its  inexorable  demands,  its  insatiable  insist- 
ences, is  a  rule  as  much  more  harsh  and  self-submerg- 
ent  than  the  creed  of  Christ  as  it  is  antagonistic  to  it. 

"Sell  all  that  thou  hast,"  enjoined  the  Gentle  One, 
"and  give  to  the  poor." 

"Grip  all  that  thou  canst,"  runs  the  creed  of  the 
Respectable  One,  "and  seem  to  have  more!" 

The  first  injunction  is  so  simple.  Turn  out  of  your 
houses  all  these  superfluities  which  make  your  lives 
unlivable;  in  the  elaborate  fabrication  whereof  the 
faces  of  the  poor  are  ground ;  into  whose  polish  and 


THE  RELIGION  OF  APPEARANCES.  165 

preservation  your  womenkind  rub  the  brightness  and 
possibilities  of  human  lives;  and  for  whose  protection 
are  necessary  huge  standing  armies  and  striding 
police,  prisons,  barracks,  reformatories,  plank-beds, 
truncheons,  and  all  the  gruesome  paraphernalia  for 
preventing  the  one  who  hath  not  from  doing  more 
than  hungrily  cover  the  possessions  of  the  one  who 
hath !  Turn  out  these  things  of  moth  and  rust  and 
corruption,  for  whose  laying  up  you  are  mere  slaves 
submerged  in  the  city  of  toil,  spending  your  possibil- 
ities of  peaceful,  dignified  existence  in  the  joyless, 
unnatural  grind  of  the  money-mill — turn  out  these 
things,  which  feed  on  the  oxygen  and  sunshine  of  your 
houses  as  their  getting  has  fed  on  the  oxygen  and 
sunshine  of  your  lives,  turn  them  out  and  breathe 
freely,  men  without  incubus  of  possessions,  men  of 
simple  life  and  enough  leisure  to  enjoy  it ! 

Some  household  gods  we  must  have  for  tradition's, 
affection's,  and  association's  sake.  Some  objects,  tool 
whereon  to  expend  our  industry  and  care,  bu.t  why,  in 
the  name  of  all  that  is  rational,  grind  life  away  amass- 
ing furniture  and  other  commodities  which,  when 
amassed,  are  mere  bothersome  encumbrance,  obliging 
us  to  fill  the  warehouses  we  call  our  homes  with  ill- 
bred  uncongenial  persons  for  the  purpose  of  scrubbing 
and  polishing  these  wares  for  which  we  have  exchanged 
our  human  talents  and  bartered  our  joys!  And  why? 
Why,  because  it  is  the  first  commandment  of  the 
religion  of  Respectability  that  our  possessions  shail 
not  be  apportioned  to  our  needs,  but  to  its  assessment 
of  that  which  is  proper  to  such  as  seek  the  pale  of  its 
enameled  countenance.  Oh,  fashion  of  Snobbishness! 
Oh,  cruelty  of  Sham!  Oh,  religion  of  Respectabil- 
ity! Let  us  be  Moslem,  Turk,  or  Infidel,  anything 
rather  than  to  bow  before  this  Mammon  Calf  of  Sense- 
less Imitation,  sacrificing  to  it  all  the  greatness  of  our 
Human  Individuality. 

Mrs.  Kew- Barling's  drawing-room  was  a  large  room, 
when  you  consider  that  its  veneer  and  finish  repre- 
sented inch  by  inch  the  shine  and  savor  of  Mrs.  Kew- 
Barling's  life. 


1 66  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

The  blinds  were  kept  scrupulously  drawn  until  the 
sun  had  set,  and  the  windows  were  but  rarely  opened, 
so  that  the  place  was  of  a  dim,  religious  gloom,  and 
odorous  of  the  mustiness  and  stagnation  typical  of  the 
creed  whereto  it  was  consecrate.  There  were  many 
gods  in  it,  the  religion  of  Respectability  being  prim- 
itive and  polytheistic,  and  it  was  overcrowded  with 
duly  antimacassared  seats,  arranged  in  more  or  less 
symmetrical  order,  for  the  accommodation  of  fellow- 
religionists,  whensoever  it  should  move  them  to  enter 
it  by  right  of  the  baptism  of  introduction  in  order  to 
celebrate  with  more  or  less  form  some  function  of  its 
ordinance.  Chief  and  most  hideous  of  its  deities  was 
a  breakfast  service  of  old  Worcester,  incomplete  and 
defective,  which  was  ranged  upon  a  walnut  over-man- 
tel as  upon  an  altar.  It  had  belonged  to  a  great-aunt 
of  Mrs.  Kew- Barling,  and  though  it  might  serve  for 
evidence  of  the  family's  gentility  and  means  for  a 
period  of  some  generations,  it  would  certainly  suggest 
to  a  disciple  of  the  doctrine  of  heredity,  that  from  one 
side,  at  all  events,  of  her  descent,  no  trace  whatsoever 
of  artistic  differentiation  was  to  be  expected. 

Another  god  was  a  full  length  portrait  in  oils  of 
Mr.  Kew-Barling's  great-grandmother,  which,  if  it 
were  at  all  a  faithful  representation  of  that  good  lady's 
normal  aspect  and  attire,  would  leave  our  disciple  of 
hereditary  doctrine  deploring  that  his  host  should  have 
come  of  a  line  to  which  looks  were  as  lacking  as 
decency.  For  though  the  artist  had  been  singularly 
lavish  in  his  apportionment  of  draperies,  he  or  the 
lady  had  been  signally  obtuse  as  to  its  uses  from  the 
standpoint  of  clothing. 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  had  always  some  misgiving  as  to 
the  propriety  of  presenting  this  exceedingly  decollett 
person  as  a  senior  representative  of  the  Kew-Barling 
family. 

But  the  picture  enjoyed  the  reputation  of  being  a 
Lely,  and  the  discredit  of  possessing  a  progenitor 
who  habitually  went  about  without  clothes  was  a  very 
small  matter  indeed  in  the  balance  of  credit  attaching 


THE  RELIGION  OF  APPEARANCES.  167 

to  the  possession  of  a  progenitor  of  any  description 
who  could  have  afforded  to  be  painted  by  Lely. 

However,  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  always  punctiliously 
explained  that  the  lady  was  not  in  her  everyday  attire, 
but  that  she  was  posing  as  a  Grace  or  a  Muse,  or  some 
other  classical  person  with  a  distaste  for  bodices. 

Fortunately,  a  dim  recess  at  a  distance  from  a  win- 
dow occurred  in  Mrs.  Kew-Barling' s  drawing-room, 
and  indeed  the  very  dimness  of  this  recess  was  to  her 
the  last  straw  in  the  bundle  of  inducements  deciding 
her  to  take  the  house. 

"The  great-grandmother  would  go  so  very  nicely 
there,"  she  had  said.  And  thither  the  great-grand- 
mother betook  herself  with  her  smiles  and  simpers. 
And  there,  in  the  dusk  of  her  seclusion  and  the  shame 
of  her  unashamedness,  she  did  duty  for  a  Lely  and  a 
Grace. 

Near  her  stood  a  walnut  sideboard,  with  grooves, 
pilasters,  and  arboreal  carvings,  the  intricate  inter- 
stices of  which  seemed  specially  designed  for  dust 
traps.  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  has,  on  more  than  one  occa- 
sion, been  betrayed  into  tears  over  frenzied  and  frus- 
trated efforts  to  persuade  the  screwed-up  corner  of  a 
duster  to  penetrate  narrows  too  narrow  to  be  reached. 
You  could  see  a  pink  distortion  of  your  face  in  the 
polish  of  the  panels  and  in  some  decorative  peaches. 
There  was  a  dragon,  too,  of  simple  anatomy,  with 
ribbed  and  outstretched  wings,  which  seemed  fash- 
ioned solely  for  the  accommodation  of  dusting  cloths 
and  the  credit  of  her  who  wielded  them;  but  there 
were  likewise  niggly  moldings  and  spiral  barbarities, 
which  none  but  a  spiteful  mind  could  have  perpe- 
trated. For  no  fine  frenzy  of  art — if  it  hope  to  be 
described  as  human  art — should  so  lose  sight  of  the 
amenities  of  life  as  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  crea- 
tions in  wood  entail  a  retinue  of  dusters. 

The  room  was  divided  into  two  by  means  of  a  terra 
cotta  portiere  in  Utrecht  velvet — an  upper  and  smaller 
holy  of  holies,  a  lower  and  larger — if  one  may  so 
describe  it — nave.  The  upper  and  holier  held  the 
objects  of  higher  bigotry,  as,  for  example,  the  venera- 


J 68  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

ble  breakfast-service  and  the  immodest  Grace.  Like- 
wise, here  stood,  supported  on  a  velvet  footstool,  a 
dilapidated  harp — a  harp  of  tarnished  lustre,  broken 
pedals,  and  frayed  strings,  a  voiceless  relic,  but  one 
eloquent  of  the  Barling  gentility,  for  had  it  not 
belonged  to  a  step-niece  of  Mr.  Barling's  great-aunt, 
an  heiress  who  married  on  her  sixteenth  birthday  an 
alderman  of  the  city  of  London,  and  died  on  her  sev- 
enteenth birthday,  poor  child,  in  an  ambitious  effort  to 
become  a  mother,  while  she  ought  still  to  have  been 
using  her  backboard  for  purposes  of  development?  So 
the  aldermanic  monster  prowled  in  other  nurseries 
in  search  of  other  spouses,  and  the  poor  little  harpist 
was  laid  in  her  coffin,  with  her  puny  dead  ambition  at 
her  childish  breast ;  and  the  aldermanic  monster,  hav- 
ing no  use  for  harps,  returned  it  to  her  parents, 
whence  it  descended  to  Mr.  Kew. 

I  need  not  particularize  at  length  all  the  shrines  and 
worshipful  objects  of  Mrs.  Kew-Barling's  drawing- 
room.  There  were  dejeHner  services  in  china  of  a 
delicacy  which  courted  chipping,  set  tastefully  on  what- 
nots and  spindle-legged  tables.  Before  these  mats  of 
woolly  character  were  spread  as  for  some  ritual  observ- 
ance. 

There  was  a  milking-stool  with  yellow,  legs,  but  no 
other  symptom  of  vaccine  occupation.  There  was  an 
easel  draped  with  plush,  but  no  other  sign  of  artistic 
tenure.  There  were  fans  on  the  walls,  and  an  Aus- 
tralian boomerang  suspended  from  the  ceiling.  There 
were  utensils  from  India,  and  trays  from  Japan.  A 
suite  of  gilt  chairs  spread  themselves  round  with  an 
air  of  superior  and  British  sufferance  of  the  foreign 
invaders — a  suite  of  chairs  one  sat  but  gingerly  upon, 
and  did  not  sit  upon  at  all  if  there  were  any  option  in 
the  matter,  for  the  satin  resplendency  of  their  cush- 
ioned seats  afforded  but  slippery  security. 

There  were  lesser  deities  in  glass  cases,  as,  for 
example,  a  Chinese  lady's  slipper,  with  a  tinkling  bell 
hidden  somewhere  in  the  sole,  a  mimosa  fern,  which 
had  grown  pallid  and  malevolent,  remembering  the 


THE  RELIGION  OF  APPEARANCES.  169 

air  and  sunlight  of  an  earlier  existence,  and  a  stocking 
attributed  to  the  wardrobe  of  Queen  Bess. 

There  were  modern  things,  too,  in  this  temple  of 
the  convenances — plush  monkeys  clambering  about  the 
breakfast  service ;  a  drain-pipe  filled  with  bulrushes ; 
a  firescreen  composed  of  palm  leaves,  dried  ferns, 
tinsel  braid,  and  artificial  frogs ;  mats,  antimacassars, 
ribbon  bows,  and  miniature  brackets,  whereon  stood 
statuettes  and  sea-shells — trophies  of  summer  expedi- 
tions. 

The  pen  tires  in  the  effort  of  enumeration  as  the 
mind  sickens  at  the  consideration  of  the  labors  entailed 
upon  the  female  slave  who  had  heaped  the  obligations 
of  these  legion  superfluities  upon  her  weighted  shoul- 
ders. For  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  never  permitted  any 
other  than  herself  to  minister  to  her  idols  further  than 
to  scrub  and  sweep  the  floor,  and  furbish  the  fireplace. 

The  dusting,  washing,  polishing,  renewing  and 
arranging  inseparable  from  so  many  deities,  she  made 
her  sole  and  special  care.  Had  she  a  moment  to 
spare,  her  fingers  would  be  busy  on  some  fresh  mac- 
rame  work  for  bordering  a  bracket,  some  latest  stitch 
for  multiplying  mats,  some  draping  or  mending  of  the 
temple  curtains,  or  some  lamp-shade  to  re-cover  so 
skillfully  that  no  feminine  caller,  be  she  never  so 
penetrative  of  eye  or  perception,  should  be  clever 
enough  to  brand  it  with  the  stigma  of  "home-made." 
For  the  Nirvana  of  attainment  in  the  religion  of 
Appearances  is  the  ability  to  sit  with  folded  hands, 
and  have  one's  requirements  sent  in  ready-made  from 
the  shop! 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  had  a  charming  taste  and  skill  in 
bonnets,  but  she  would  not  for  worlds  have  confessed 
— unless  to  deny  necessitated  a  lie  more  direct  than 
mere  evasion — not  for  worlds  would  she  have  con- 
fessed that  she  herself  had  trimmed  the  bonnet  she 
held  always  in  reserve,  and  in  an  hermetically  dust- 
proof  bandbox,  for  the  returning  of  Mrs.  Askew- Hick- 
ox's  call,  when  that  millenial  occasion  should  arrive. 

"Nobody  would  ever  suspect  it  was  trimmed  out  of 
Paris,"  she  maintained,  triumphantly.  And  even 


1 70  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

Mr.  Barling,  who  was  a  plain,  straightforward  man, 
and  only  a  very  reluctant  convert  to  the  creed  of 
Appearances,  could  not  help  feeling  a  sense  of  exulta- 
tion that  Askew- Hickox,  who  drove  down  to  the  station 
in  the  smartest  of  dog-carts,  and  smoked  half-crown 
cigars,  should  suppose  him — Mr.  Barling — capable  of 
getting  his  wife's  bonnets  straight  from  the  metropolis 
of  fashion. 

So  important,  indeed,  did  it  seem  to  Mrs.  Kew-Barl- 
ing  to  conceal  the  evidences  of  her  industry  and  talent 
that  I  have  even  known  her  to  abstract  the  gold- 
stamped  lining  of  a  bonnet,  bought  actually  by  Mr. 
Barling  in  a  fit  of  generosity  and  funds  from  a  West 
End  shop,  and  to  sew  the  lining  emblazoned  "Louise, 
New  Bond  Street,"  or  "Madame  Smithson,  Regent 
Street, ' '  into  a  bonnet  of  her  own  trimming. 

She  compromised  it  with  her  conscience  by  reflecting 
that  the  bonnet  was  certainly  equal  to  anything  Smith- 
son  had  ever  produced. 

Mrs.  Kew- Barling  rarely,  or  never,  went  walking 
for  mere  delight  or  healthfulness.  By  the  time  she 
had  dusted  and  carefully  replaced  the  Worcester 
breakfast  pieces,  and  had  thought  out  some  fresh  way 
of  grouping  them;  had  wrestled  with  the  niggly 
moldings  and  exasperating  dust  traps  of  the  side- 
board ;  had  watered  the  mimosa  and  replaced  its  cover ; 
had  washed  the  dejeuner  services,  and  polished  their 
supporting  tables ;  had  shaken  out  the  portieres  and 
refolded  them;  had  feather-brushed  the  grand- 
maternal  shamelessness  and  gilded  frame ;  had  fluffed 
up  the  mats;  cleansed  the  statuettes  and  shells;  retied 
the  ribbon  of  the  bulrushes ;  softly  swept  the  strings 
and  tarnish  of  the  melancholy  harp;  vainly  attempted 
to  modify,  by  way  of  antimacassars,  the  gilt  preten- 
tiousness and  arrogance  of  the  satin  suite;  rubbed 
new  surfaces  upon  the  Indian  utensils;  shaken  the 
Japanese  fans;  burnished  the  boomerang;  refilled  the 
lamps,  and  trimmed  their  wicks ;  set  out  the  shilling' s 
worth  of  flowers,  which  were  her  sole  daily  extrava- 
gance, to  such  purpose  that  they  would  show  like  half- 
a-crown's  worth; — by  the  time  these  things  had  been 


THE   RELIGION  OF  APPEARANCES.  171 

done,  and  done  as  Mrs.  Kew-Barling's  religious 
instincts  moved  her  to  do  them,  she  had  little  time  or 
energy  for  walking.  Moreover,  there  were  other 
chambers  in  her  temple  needing  care  and  garniture — 
other  chambers  crammed  with  senseless  superfluities ; 
small  persons'  stockings  to  be  mended,  and  buttons  to 
be  re-supplied;  household  linens  to  be  darned  and 
patched ;  curtains  to  be  made  for  windows ;  cold  mut- 
tons to  be  returned ;  hot  meats  to  be  provided,  to  say 
nothing  of  nursery  puddings,  infant  foods,  and  infant 
bottles ;  powders  to  be  administered ;  kitchen  tempers 
to  be  pacified;  schoolroom  mutinies  to  be  quelled; 
boots  to  be  dispatched  for  patchings;  letters  to  be 
written ;  bills  to  be  revised ;  blankets  to  be  superannu- 
ated and  disposed  of  charitably,  or  at  home ;  feminine 
small  knickers  to  be  frilled ;  masculine  small  knickers 
to  be  re-kneed ;  frocks,  petticoats,  and  pinafores  to  be 
fabricated ;  feeders  to  be  embroidered ;  preserves  and 
pickles  to  be  potted,  sealed,  and  labeled ;  ink  bottles, 
gum  bottles,  wine  bottles,  and  decanters  to  be  filled ; 
store-cupboards  inspected,  and  their  deficiencies  sup- 
plied ;  scullery  commissions  and  omissions  to  be  routed 
out — 

"Gracious!"  cried  Millicent,  for  the  first  time 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  toils  and  details  of  middle - 
class  economies,  goaded  and  harassed  as  such  econo- 
mies for  the  most  part  are  by  lack  of  means,  and  the 
exactions  of  the  creed  of  Appearances.  "Gracious!" 
cried  she,  "is  this  the  way  women  spend  their  lives?" 

At  home  there  had  been  no  kind  of  stint,  and  an  army 
of  servants,  with  a  housekeeper  at  their  head,  had 
kept  the  machinery  of  domesticity  well  out  of  sight. 
At  The  Towers,  under  Lady  Kershaw's  dignified  rule, 
poverty  had  translated  itself  into  simplicity,  thread- 
bareness  into  tradition. .  But  poor  Mrs.  Kew-Barling's 
unceasing  efforts  to  appear  well-off  in  the  sight  of  her 
neighbors  gave  rise  to  such  an  atmosphere  of  conflict, 
stirred  such  a  dust  of  endeavor,  that  Millicent  lived 
bewildered.  Life  was  forever  screwed  and  tortured  up 
to  concert  pitch,  in  dread  lest  some  chance  caller  should 
find  the  tone  of  Poplar  Villa  a  fraction  below  the 


172  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

standard   affected   by   the   particular    set   whereto   it 
aspired. 

Did  the  house-boy  neglect  to  whiten  the  steps — and 
the  house-boy  neglected  to  whiten  the  steps  on  every 
occasion  whereupon  an  excuse  would  serve  him — the 
matter  assumed  proportions  momentous  in  the  mind  of 
Mrs.  Barling.  For  were  the  steps  not  immaculate  by 
ten,  who  could  say  but  that  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  had 
not  passed  by  on  the  other  side  and  run  her  exclusive 
eye  over  the  evidence  of  human  or  bull-dog  footsteps 
it  behoves  Respectability  to  obliterate  from  its  door- 
steps, as  though  they  were  the  hooves  of  crime? 
Possibly  nobody  had  seen  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  pass, 
but  that  were  evidence  altogether  too  slight  for  reliev- 
ing the  mind  of  a  torture  of  doubt.  For  the  otherwise 
consoling  suggestion  that  she  so  rarely  passed  was  no 
guarantee  at  all  in  a  world  of  contrarieties  that  she 
might  not  have  passed  on  this  particular  morning,  and, 
moreover,  had  the  bitter  after-flavor  in  it  that,  passing 
rarely,  she  would  so  have  no  means  of  knowing  that 
the  footmarked  condition  of  this  morning  was  not  the 
normal  state  of  Mrs.  Barling's  steps! 

One  of  the  drawbacks  to  semi-detachedness  is  that 
the  closeness  of  comparison  with  one's  next  door 
neighbor  may  be  rendered  unexceptionably  odious. 
And  Mrs.  Kew-Barling's  neighbor  was  such  a  one  as 
to  do  this,  for  she  was  a  widow,  with  means,  and  no 
children.  She  was,  therefore  enabled  to  keep  the 
complement  of  three  serving  maids  and  a  boy,  the 
number  prescribed  by  the  sphere  to  which  Mrs.  Kew- 
Barling  aspired. 

Moreover,  her  childlessness  freed  her  from  the 
humiliating  possibilities  whereto  Mrs.  Kew-Barling, 
with  three,  was  hourly  exposed.  There  was  no  stout 
sailor-suited  Robby  to  hang  out,  in  defiance  of  the 
string  of  Sunday  church-goers,  a  broomhandle  whereto 
was  attached  a  garment  of  Ruby's  described  generally 
as  a  "pair,"  and  which,  on  this  occasion,  floated 
proudly  on  a  high  March  wind  as  a  pair  of  very  swelled 
and  inartistic  limbs  ending  abruptly  in  frills.  Mrs. 
Kew-Barling  was  rarely  severe,  but,  on  this  occasion, 


THE  RELIGION  OF  APPEARANCES.  173 

Robert  ate  his  Sunday  dinner  without  pudding — and 
the  pudding  was  of  plums ! 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling's  life  was  rendered  doubly  difficult 
by  the  fact  that  her  neighbor,  Mrs.  Malcolm,  possessed 
an  income  more  than  sufficient  for  her  needs.  It 
required  such  constant  care  and  anxious  thought  to 
pursuade  last  year's  curtains  to  look  as  well  as  next 
door  new  ones;  linen  roller  blinds  as  imposing  as 
peach-tinted  Venetians.  Moreover,  in  summer  Mrs. 
Malcolm  sported  immaculate  sun-blinds  and  window- 
boxes,  which  latter  a  man  from  the  shop  kept  in  flour- 
ishing and  irreproachable  bloom.  The  sun-blinds 
were  out  of  the  question,  but  Mrs.  Kew- Barling  made 
a  valiant  attempt  at  the  window-boxes,  being  shocked 
at  the  bare  and  meagre  aspect  from  the  street  of  her 
flowerless  windows  after  Mrs.  Malcolm's  had  broken 
out  in  blossom. 

Kew  himself  made  the  boxes  on  Sunday  afternoons 
and  fronted  them  with  virgin  cork.  Robby  supplied 
them  with  mold  from  the  garden,  wheeled  in  his 
barrow,  till  he  learned  that  the  boxes  were  for  use, 
and  their  filling  not  a  game  devised  for  his  diversion. 
Learning  this,  he  struck  work,  and  Mrs.  Kew-Barling 
herself  completed  it  under  cover  of  night;  but  even 
then  her  homely  ferns  and  peas  had  not  the  shoppy 
style  of  Mrs.  Malcolm's  marguerites  and  pink  ger- 
aniums. 

Mrs.  Malcolm  kept  her  garden  like  a  picture. 
Indeed,  it  was  so  trim,  you  might  easily  have  doubted 
that  the  flowers  and  plants  in  it  were  really  growing, 
they  grew  so  politely  and  so  precisely  as  they  were 
intended  to  grow.  The  reds  never  trespassed  on  the 
whites,  the  pinks  never  brushed  cheeks  with  the  blues, 
nor  did  the  shrubs  intrude  their  shoots  or  branches  on 
the  space  belonging  to  their  neighbors.  They  were 
opulent  and  well-behaved ;  perhaps  a  trifle  showy,  but 
they  made  up  for  this  by  a  signal  decorousness  of  mein. 

Something  of  the  credit  of  their  manners  must  be 
given,  where  it  was  due,  to  the  man  from  the  shop,  a 
person  of  so  correct  a  mind  that  he  might  have  been 


174         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

intrusted   with   the   management  of   a  young  ladies' 
school. 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  abandoned  the  attempt  to  vie  with 
him  quite  early  in  the  day.  Robby  and  the  black- 
birds, reinforced  by  Ruby  and  the  slugs,  would  have 
made  havoc  in  Eden,  so  the  Kew-Barling  garden  aimed 
at  little  more  than  decent  neatness :  A  plot  of  trampled 
grass  with  a  box-bordered  bed  of  pansies  and  a  standard 
rose  tree  in  the  middle ;  half-a-dozen  unfruitful  fruit 
trees  amid  a  waste  of  marigolds  and  cornflowers  at 
the  end ;  a  plain  of  grim  and  unproductive  shadow  on 
the  north  side  of  the  parti-fence — to  Mrs.  Malcolm  fell 
the  fortune  and  sunshine  of  the  south — and  opposite 
this  a  bed  where  flowers  might  have  flourished  had  it 
not  been  that  Mrs.  Malcolm's  slugs  and  snails,  banished 
peremptorily  by  the  afore-mentioned  man  from  the 
shop,  took  refuge  there,  and  basked  and  sunned 
themselves  to  such  advantage  that  nothing  Mrs.  Kew- 
Barling  could  plant  came  amiss  to  their  abnormally 
healthy  appetites. 

So  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  early  abandoned  the  attempt 
to  do  more  with  her  garden  than  conceal  by  means 
of  an  ivy-covered  latticework,  the  fact  that  her  tea- 
towels,  dusters,  and  sundry  of  her  children's  garments 
were  washed  at  home  for  economical  purposes. 

All  things  considered,  especially  that  main  one 
whereof  Millicent  conceived  an  exaggerated  notion, 
that  while  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  grappled  daily  with  the 
hydra-headed  Monster  of  Appearances,  Mr.  Kew- 
Barling  girded  up  his  loins  and  betook  himself  each 
morning  to  the  city,  every  force  nerved  against  the 
horrible  contingency  of  being  trampled  under  by  a 
horde  of  ruffians,  Millicent  did  not  wonder  long  at 
Molly  Barling's  anxious  lines  and  joyless  voice.  She 
rather  wondered  that  Molly  Barling  had  retained  her 
sanity  and  powers  of  grappling  so  long. 

Possibly  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  had  long  since  strung 
her  powers  to  the  tension  of  that  spectre  of  a  mangled 
Barling  brought  home  on  a  shutter,  and  a  day  when 
the  hydra-headed  should  prove  one  too  many  for  her, 
and  discover  her  to  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  washing  her 


* 
THE  RELIGION  OF  APPEARANCES.  1 75 

baby's  shirts,  and  with  her  own  tired  hands  spreading 
them  to  dry  on  the  lawn  behind  the  latticework. 

But  such  tension  had  ironed  down  the  curves  and 
roundings  of  a  face  which  still  smiled  out  of  a  faded 
photograph  in  the  Kew-Barling  drawing-room,  the 
happy,  pleased  face  of  a  younger  Molly ;  it  had  robbed 
her  hair  of  all  its  lights  and  kinks;  it  had  set  sad 
lines  about  her  lips,  and  scratched  the  ground  plan  of 
weary  furrows  round  her  eyes.  It  made  her  home  a 
dreary  treadmill,  turned  by  the  tramp  of  ceaseless 
effort,  a  drab  routine  of  dull  detail,  whereby  the  God 
of  Appearances  should  be  appeased.  While  outside 
her  windows,  blind-guarded  in  the  interests  of  the 
carpet,  the  God  of  Life  was  spreading  cool,  wide 
carpets  of  refreshing  green,  daisy-studded,  wind- 
swept, sun -warmed,  fraught  with  the  thrill  of  the 
world's  magnetic  wheeling;  mountains,  valleys, 
forests,  rivers,  snows,  and  all  the  innumerable  host  of 
marvels  we  leave  ourselves  no  time  to  marvel  at  in 
our  hurrying  haste  to  chase  about  our  homes  the  dust 
and  rust  forever  rising  from  the  disintegration  of  the 
superfluities  wherewith  they  are  choked.  And,  after 
all,  were  not  Molly  Barling' s  health  and  happiness  and 
pretty  looks  something  better  worth  preserving  than 
the  polish  of  chairs  and  fenders,  and  the  vapid  bloom 
of  antimacassar  roses? 

Depend  upon  it,  the  main  reason  for  the  lasting  and 
delightful  charm  of  Japanese  women  is  to  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  their  homes  contain  no  furniture.  Their 
houses  are  simple  to  bareness,  they  have  no  burden 
of  appearances  upon  their  shapely  shoulders.  The 
result  is  simplicity,  repose,  and  an  ability  to  grow  old 
gracefully,  an  absolute  impossibility  to  her  who  spends 
her  day  in  fierce  and  hourly  conflict  with  decay  and 
dust — the  inevitable  penalty  of  possessing  "things"! 
The  housewife  of  the  British  middle -classes  is  a  person 
for  the  most  part  warlike  of  mein  and  aspect.  Duty 
grimly  rides  her  brow,  domestic  strategy  pervades  her 
eye,  decision  and  precision  steel  her  lips.  She  has  a 
gimlet  glance  for  holes,  threadbareness,  and  spiders. 
The  lines  of  calculation  on  her  forehead  mark  her  fre- 


176         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

quent  countings  of  the  treasures  of  her  linen-cupboard, 
her  storeroom,  and  her  plate ;  her  impaired  quality  of 
voice  is  due  to  constant  scolding,  for  by  what  other 
means  shall  she  keep  the  giddy  parlor-maid  and  slattern 
kitchen-wench  forever  in  the  van  of  battle?  For, 
herself  a  martyr  to  the  duties  of  her  own  and  her 
grandame's  heaping,  to  duty  she  martyrs  her  fellows. 
But  martyrs,  though  eminently  meritorious,  are  far 
from  being  pleasant  breakfast  companions.  Who, 
then,  shall  wonder  if  Mr.  Briton,  weary  of  the  frown 
on  duty's  brow,  and  the  endless  anxieties  inseparable 
from  domestic  mole-hills,  occasionally  scandalizes  his 
neighbors  by  eloping  with  an  opera-dancer.  The 
dancer,  being  somewhat  of  the  nature  of  a  grass- 
hopper, is  rarely  hampered  by  possessions.  She 
sings,  chirps,  chats,  and  frolics  (for  it  is  during  her 
summertime  that  Mr.  B.  elopes  with  her).  She  is  not 
troubled  about  many  things;  possibly  she  is  not 
troubled  about  any  things.  So  long  as  she  can  eat 
partridge,  drink  champagne,  and  wear  smart  frocks, 
she  does  not  suffer  nightmares  on  account  of  house- 
hold linens,  nor  lie  awake  into  the  small  hours,  devis- 
ing shifts  for  making  both  ends  meet  in  such  a  manner 
that  her  neighbor  shall  detect  no  rift.  Pooh,  for 
household  linen !  Who  would  bother  darning  it?  Pooh, 
for  her  neighbor !  Who  cares  a  row  of  pins  what  Mrs. 
Grundy  thinks? 

Oh,  no  doubt  Mademoiselle  Cigale,  during  her  sum- 
mer days,  is  livelier  company  than  Madame  Duty. 
And  Madame  Duty  is  misguided  duty.  While  she  is 
puckering  her  brow  and  lips  above  her  household 
linen,  Cigale  is  practicing  smiles  before  her  looking- 
glass;  and  Briton  prefers  smiles  to  puckers  any  day, 
as  he  prefers  the  devil's  good  tune's  to  the  parson's 
bad  ones.  And  after  all,  Madame  Duty,  you  owe  it  to 
your  womanhood,  to  say  nothing  of  poor  overtaxed 
Briton,  to  show  how  your  sex  may  be  at  the  same  time 
good  and  charming,  while  poor  Miss  Grasshopper  has 
forfeited  her  right  to  be  considered  more  than  one  of 
these ! 


A  HUNDRED   MILES  AWAY.  177 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
A  HUNDRED  MILES  AWAY! 

' '  I  wish  I  were  dead  now, 

Or  up  in  my  bed  now, 
»  To  cover  my  head  now, 

And  have  a  good  cry." 

Prior  to  making  the  acquaintance  of  her  pupils, 
Millicent  had  set  about  refurbishing  her  education. 
It  had  never  been  a  thing  of  great  dimensions,  so  that 
to  refurbish  it  was  no  grave  matter. 

She  was,  however,  a  good  reader,  by  no  means  con- 
fining her  reading  to  works  of  fiction.  Moreover,  she 
remembered  that  she  read ;  observed,  and  listened,  and 
remembered  that  she  had  observed  and  heard. 

"The  children  are  young,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  had 
written.  But  in  these  days  of  higher  education,  who 
could  say  how  advanced  they  might  not  be? 

"Suppose,  for  example,"  Millicent  reflected,  "they 
should  question  me  about  a  venial  equinox  or  the 
equator." 

But  Rob  and  Ruby  showed  no  mental  strivings  after 
knowledge  so  abstruse.  Indeed,  they  were  far  too 
intelligent  to  care  for  "the  second-hand  knowledge  of 
books."  They  vastly  preferred  the  results  of  their 
own  and  first-hand  observation.  It  was  as  much  waste 
of  time  to  attempt  to  prove  to  Robert  that  the  earth 
was  moving  as  it  was  fruitless  expenditure  of  energy 
to  attempt  to  impress  upon  Ruby  that  fat  was  a  pleas- 
ant form  of  food. 

"Yuby  don't  yike  it,"  was  the  point  she  returned  to 
with  a  shake  of  her  curls,  and  a  disgusted  distortion  of 
her  charming  face. 

So  Robert,  hands  in  pockets,  and  his  legs  stretched 
wide  in  order  to  study  the  starry  heavens  and  at  the 
same  time  to  retain  his  foothold  of  the  earth,  would 
insist : 

12 


178        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"I  can  feel  the  earth  standing  still,  and  I  can  see 
the  moon  and  the  clouds  racing  by." 

Sometimes  they  would  accept  the  axioms  of  their 
rudimentary  education  without  question ;  but  this  was 
generally  upon  points  they  had  no  opportunity  of 
testing. 

"You  say  London's  bigger  than  Winkworth, ' '  Robby 
would  urge,  "and  father  says  it  is  as  well;  I  shall  see 
when  I  go  there. ' ' 

So  when  Ruby,  demanding  to  know  the  source  of 
the  well-beloved  orange,  was  informed  that  it  had 
grown  upon  a  tree,  she  remarked  skeptically : 

"Yuby  never  seen  it!" 

Millicent  found  this  century-end  attitude  of  mind 
distinctly  obstructive  of  learning,  quite  unaffected  by 
banishment  to  corners,  and  most  successfully  treated 
by  dignified  silence.  She  was  given  a  perfectly  free 
hand  in  the  matter  of  the  children's  education. 

"Do  just  as  you  think  best,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling 
observed,  with  an  abstracted  air,  hurrying  to  the 
drawing-room,  "if  you  can  only  succeed  in  keeping 
them  out  of  mischief.  But,  I  am  anxious  for  Robby 
to  enter  Mrs.  Minns'  school  by  the  time  he  is  eight. 
Little  Clifford  Hickox  entered  before  he  was  seven." 

Qualification  for  entrance  to  Mrs.  Minns'  Prepara- 
tory School  for  Young  Gentlemen  was  not  so  much 
determined  by  the  mental  acquirements  of  the  pupil 
as  by  the  circumstances  of  his  age  and  stature  enabling 
him  to  wear  the  uniform  prescribed  by  Mrs.  Minns. 

I  require  all  my  young  gentlemen  to  wear  Eton  suits 
and  silk  hats,"  she  would  remark,  with  the  gravity  of 
a  field-marshal,  "and  I  scarcely  think  you  could  pur- 
chase a  silk  hat  so  small  that  it  would  not  slip  down 
over  Master  Newton's  ears." 

"But  if  I  can,  Mrs.  Minns?"  Master  Newton's 
aspiring  mother  would  solicitously  urge.  "He  ought 
to  be  able  to  wear  one;  he  is  nearly  seven." 

"If  you  are  able,  Mrs.  Newton,  then  I  shall  be 
pleased  to  enter  Master  Newton's  name  upon  my 
books,"  Mrs.  Minns  would  graciously  assent,  for  she 
was  far  from  being  the  last  person  conscious  of  the 


A  HUNDRED  MILES  AWAY.  179 

prestige  attaching  in  Winkworth  to  the  fact  of  having  a 
son  at  her  preparatory  school. 

It  said  little  for  the  enterprise  established  in  the  hat 
trade  if  Mrs.  Newton  failed  to  find  a  stove-pipe  which, 
by  a  little  judicious  padding  here,  and  shaping  there, 
could  not  be  induced  to  retain  something  approaching 
its  proper  angle  on  Master  Newton's  head.  Indeed,  it 
was  somewhat  in  the  nature  of  a  revelation  in  the  arts 
of  tailoring  and  hatting  to  watch  Mrs.  Minns'  young 
gentlemen  wending  their  way  to  morning  church.  The 
envious  and  less  select  whispered  that  the  shell  jackets 
and  silk  hats  of  these  young  sparks  were  made  beneath 
a  microscope.  Certainly  one  felt  a  sense  as  of  looking 
through  the  wrong  end  of  a  telescope,  as  the  black 
tapering  tail  of  boys  wriggled  decorously  up  the  aisle. 
Each  carried  in  his  little  black-gloved  hand  his  little 
hat,  into  the  little  silk-lined  well  of  which  he  dipped 
his  little  face,  then,  carefully  disposing  of  it  under  the 
seat,  sat  back,  with  the  well-brushed  scalp  of  his  little 
head  decorously  fringing  the  top  of  the  high-backed 
pew,  while  the  brain  beneath  stirred  with  such 
momentous  problems  as  the  likelihood  of  Jackson 
Minor  swopping  two  alley-tors  for  a  piece  of  stale 
seed-cake,  or  Sweetman  Major  being  thrashed  into 
parting  with  his  lame  dormouse. 

A  poke  from  Mrs.  Minns  would  remind  an  -indi- 
vidual from  time  to  time  of  his  obligation  to  proclaim 
in  his  shrill  small  treble  that  the  "Glorious  company 
of  the  Apostles  prai — ai — ai — se  Thee,"  or  to  confess 
himself  "a  miserable  sinner. "  For  religious  instruc- 
tion was  one  of  the  strong  points  of  Mrs.  Minns  prepa- 
ration. 

On  such  occasions  Mrs.  Kew-Barling,  seeing  noth- 
ing of  the  incongruity  of  these  small  chubby  creatures 
with  their  funereal  stove  pipes,  their  hands  punctili- 
ously incased  in  ebon  kid  for  the  greater  glory  of  their 
Maker,  the  points  of  their  escalloped  jackets  standing 
perkily,  and  after  the  manner  of  rudimentary  tails, 
above  the  empty  pleats  of  their  genteel  trousers ;  see- 
ing in  them  nothing  beyond  a  youthful  apotheosis  of 
that  selectness  she  aspired  to,  thought  with  a  fluttering- 


i8o         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

heart  of  a  day  when  her  Robby,  exalted  to  the  dignity 
of  broad-cloth  shell  and  silken  "topper,"  should  walk 
in  the  rear  of  a  train  whereof  Clifford  Hickox  was 
steadily  advancing  to  the  van. 

After  morning  church  the  select  train  broke  up  into 
its  select  constituents,  the  boys  whose  parents  lived  in 
Winkworth  joining  their  respective  families ;  but  Mrs. 
Minns  always  impressed  upon  parents  in  treaty  with 
her  that  the  boys  should  be  allowed  to  reassemble  at 
her  gate  on  Sunday  mornings  and  repair  thence  in  a 
body  to  church.  She  considered  that  to  do  so  gave 
them  a  befitting  sense  of  the  "conformity  of  their 
position,"  a  vague  but  impressive  saying  which  never 
failed  of  its  effect — for  Mrs.  Minns  was  the  daughter 
of  a  bishop  and  the  widow  'of  a  dean,  and  Winkworth 
was  not  the  place  to  cavil  at  her  phrases. 

The  envious  said — but  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  envious  were  among  those  whose  social  status 
precluded  their  sons  from  the  privileges  of  Mrs.  Minns 
preparation — and  the  envious  said  she  did  it  for  adver- 
tisement. But  I  honestly  believe  the  envious  were 
wrong  and  that  Mrs.  Minns  in  all  sincerity  of  heart 
considered  it  advisable  that  her  young  gentlemen 
should  early  accustom  themselves  to  the  "conformity 
of  their  position" — whatsoever  she  might  mean  by 
that- 

Mrs.  Barling  was  not,  of  course,  considering  the 
non-committal  attitude  of  Winkworth  society  toward 
her  and  her  position,  entirely  confident  that  Mrs. 
Minns  would  admit  her  Robby  to  the  fold.  She  woke 
up  in  the  night  to  think  about  it,  and  turned  her  fading 
face  in  weary  feverishness  upon  the  pillow,  faint  with 
a  dread  lest  Robby  should  be  denied  the  privileges  of 
the  select. 

Robby  himself  was  entirely  unambitious.  He  stig- 
matized these  black-coated  youths  as  "a  lot  of  jolly 
foote, "  declining  stoutly  the  prospect  of  one  day  enter- 
ing their  ranks.  By  some  mysterious  telepathic  power 
he  succeeded  in  imparting  his  contempt  for  them  to 
Punch,  with  the  result  that  Punch  conceived  a  rooted 
aversion  to  the  band  of  stove-pipes,  and  on  every 


A  HUNDRED  MILES  AWAY.  181 

occasion  harassed  their  gray-trousered  ankles.  His 
was  not  a  mind  of  fine  distinctions,  though  his  heart 
was  one  of  sturdy  prejudices,  and  he  has  been  known 
to  snap  aggressively  about  the  heels  of  a  very  short 
man  on  his  way  to  a  garden-party,  mistaking  him  in  his 
hat  and  new  gray  trousers  for  one  of  Mrs.  Minns' 
larger-sized  boys. 

The  manner  wherein  that  lady's  boys  parried  the 
snortings  and  crocodile  snappings  of  Punch  did  not 
increase  either  Robby's  or  Punch's  respect  for  them. 
Though,  if  they  had  shown  on  these  occasions  a  little 
less  sense  of  the  "conformity  of  their  position,"  and  a 
little  more  sign  of  independent  action,  Robby  and 
Punch  would  have  lost  some  zest  in  living.  For  I  will 
not  deny  that  one  of  Mr.  Punch's  incentives  to  exercise 
was  a  possibility  of  encountering  ' ' a  Minns' ' — as  Robby 
called  them — or  of  evading  with  a  wary  eye,  and  a 
good  deal  of  adroitness,  the  volley  of  stones  which  was 
his  invariable  greeting  from  the  other  side  of  the  fence 
protecting  the  main  body  of  "Minns." 

But  Punch  was  a  dog  of  discernment.  On  all  occa- 
sions whereon  Mrs.  Minns  herself  was  visible,  fhar- 
shaling  a  boy  or  boys,  his  demeanor  was  irreproach- 
able. 

Once,  indeed,  Mrs.  Minns  extended  a  neatly-gloved 
finger  and  pointed  him  out  to  a  rebellious  pupil  as  a 
creature  of  exceptionable  behavior,  comparing  the 
rebellious  one's  conduct  disparagingly  with  that  of 
this  faithful  dumb  animal — a  monster  of  hideousness, 
without  reason  to  guide  him  or  a  Christian  soul  to  be 
saved. 

Whether  Punch  had  a  soul  to  be  saved  or  endan- 
gered by  his  guide  I  cannot  say,  but  if  it  were  not 
reason  which  moved  him  to  conceal  his  sentiments 
from  the  mistress  of  the  ' '  Minns, ' '  in  the  interests  of 
Robby's  future  and  Mrs.  Barling's  hopes,  I  should 
much  like  to  know  what  it  was. 

If  it  were  only  that  he  recognized  in  her  the  Epis-. 
copal  descent  or  the  temporal  and  temporary  detach- 
ment from  the  dean,  then  was  his  discernment  possibly 


182         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

less  rational,  but  in  its  class  differentiation  assuredly 
more  nearly  human. 

V  41  '  £  $  9  4>  4   •-    •     4 

"Are  you  crying  because  the  Druids  cooked  those 
chaps  in  baskets?"  Robby  queried,  above  his  lesson 
books. 

"Silly  Yivers,  ky  cos  Dooids  cook  tsaps  in  baticks?" 
echo  echoed,  tossing  her  curls. 

"Was  I  crying?"  Millicent  questioned,  jerking  her- 
self forcibly  back  some  distance  of  a  hundred  miles 
and  facing  two  pairs  of  bright  inquiring  eyes. 

"You  weren't  howling,"  Robert  explained,  "but 
there's  quite  a  little  pool  on  my  copy-book,  and  I'm 
afraid  it'll  blot." 

Millicent  took  out  her  handkerchief  and  mopped  the 
book  and  her  cheeks. 

"Why,  how  silly  I  am,"  she  said,  smiling. 

"Well,  it's  a  jolly  long  time  ago,  I  should  think," 
Robert  said,  "so  there's  nothing  much  to  mind  about. 
D'you  think  they'd  wriggle  much?" 

"Fink  ve  Dooids  yiggle?"  echo  repeated,  with  an 
eager  eye. 

"Oh,  the  tears  were  not  for  the  Druids,"  Millicent 
smiled.  "I  am  afraid  I  had  forgotten  them." 

Robert  bent  to  his  task  again.  Then  he  looked  up 
seriously.  "I  say,  you're  honor-bright  sure  you  get 
paid  here?" 

Millicent  nodded. 

He  looked  relieved.  "Because  it  'ud  be  rather 
beastly  teaching  us  for  nothing. ' ' 

"Beas'ly  teaching  Yobby  an'  me,"  the  echo  chir- 
ruped. 

Robert  turned  on  her  fiercely.  "You  shut  up,"  he 
insisted,  "you're  always  getting  things  wrong.  Why 
don't  you  say  things  of  your  own?" 

"I  shan't,"  said  echo,  aiming  a  book  at  him. 

Robert  smiled  superiorly.  "You  did,"  he  said, 
appeased.  Then  he  turned  back  to  Millicent.  "Go 
on  crying  if  you  want  to,"  he  permitted;  "I  shall  be 
a  long  time  before  I  am  ready  with  these  dates." 

Thus  invited,  Millicent  succumbed.     She  stretched 


A  HUNDRED  MILES  AWAY.  183 

her  arms  out  on  the  table,  and,  laying  her  head  upon 
them,  let  out  the  fullness  of  her  heart.  A  hundred 
miles  away  it  was  a  wedding-morning!  A  hundred 
miles  away  a  shallow-hearted,  fair-faced  woman  was 
getting  all  she,  Millicent,  held  dear, — was  getting  all 
and  thinking  it  too  little,  while  she — she  contrasted 
the  life  she  had  left,  the  life  of  pleasant,  high-bred 
culture  with  that  for  which  she  had  exchanged  it,  the 
limitations  of  the  Barling  household,  with  its  fettered 
aspirations,  its  false  ideals,  and  stifling  conventions. 
It  choked  her  breathing  it,  and  remembering  the  fine 
reposeful  tranquil  of  The  Towers,  where  there  had 
been  no  feverish  solicitude  of  appearances,  no  shame 
of  poverty,  nor  small  pretensions.  Not  to  have  had 
been  there  translated  into  a  dignified  stoicism  of  doing 
without ;  there  had  been  no  vexatious  aggravation  of 
the  hardship  of  not  having  by  the  strain  of  appearing 
to  have. 

So,  in  her  father's  home,  abundance  had  provided 
against  the  necessity  of  parading  sufficiency,  and  the 
confident  claim  of  the  man  of  industry  and  successful 
enterprise  to  his  right  to  the  position  he  had  won  had 
given  a  tone  of  sturdy  independence  and  contempt  of 
sham,  which  made  her  present  circumstances  chafe 
with  an  unsuspected  gall.  To  have  voluntarily  sur- 
rendered her  fortune,  and  to  have  passed  of  her  free- 
will into  the  ways  of  poverty  and  effort,  had  put  her 
into  a  glow ;  but  to  find  the  way  of  poverty  no  broad, 
fine,  independent  road,  but  a  tortuous  path  beset  by 
little  shifts  and  make-believes,  and  shames  and  shams, 
seemed  more  to  her  that  morning  than  she  could 
support. 

"Is  all  my  life  henceforth  to  be  a  struggle  to  appease 
an  Askew-Hickox?"  she  bewailed,  with  her  head  on 
the  table.  "Have  I  forever  forfeited  the  right  my 
father' s  industry  and  money  bought  me  to  be  counted 
one  of  the  select?  If  Mrs.  Askew  looks  down  on  Mrs. 
Barling,  what  will  she  think  of  me,  who  am  her  chil- 
dren's governess?" 

Her  soul  was  flooded  with  a  sense  of  the  squalid 
misery  of  things,  with  the  possible  futility  of  her 


1 84  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

sacrifice,  as  the  vision  of  a  fair  face,  dimpling  beneath 
the  wedding  tulle  and  searching  past  a  strong  ador- 
ing one  into  wider  fields  of  admiration,  came  before 
her ;  and  with  the  pinching  pitifulness  her  own  portion 
of  the  sacrifice  had  proved,  when  she  felt  a  tugging  at 
her  gown.  A  heavy  body  sprang  against  her,  her 
cheek  was  licked  with  a  strong  prodigal  tongue,  while 
commiserating  sniffs  and  whinings  sounded  in  her  ear. 
Looking  down  she  found  that  Punch,  descrying  her 
distress,  had  stolen  from  his  hearthrug,  and  was 
proffering  rough  but  earnest-hearted  sympathies. 
Robert  was  conning  his  dates,  with  a  long  face  and  a 
commiserating  eye  upon  her,  while  Ruby  had  laid  her 
slate  of  pot-hooks  on  the  table,  and  was  trotting  round 
to  comfort  that  side  of  her  left  uncomforted  by  Punch. 

"Don'tky,  Yivers,"  she  exhorted,  tearfully;  "beas'ly 
ol'  Dooids  cook  tsaps  in  basticks.  Yuby  kill  'em  dead 
on  Sunday!" 

Millicent  laid  her  wet  miserable  cheek  against  the 
child's.  They  sobbed  together  for  some  minutes. 

"Yuby  yove  Yivers  as  much  as  vis,"  said  Yuby, 
stretching  out  her  chubby  arms  convulsively;  "an' 
Yobby,  too,"  she  added. 

"Oh,  well,  I  only  said  I  liked  her,"  Robert  insisted, 
with  a  red  face;  "and  it's  jolly  of  her  to  take  old  Punch 
out." 

"Kiss  Yuby,"  Yuby  pleaded,  screwing  up  her  rosy 
lips;  "an*  Yobby,"  she  added,  smacking  them  after 
the  operation. 

But  "Yobby"  put  up  an  arm  in  defense. 

"D'you  think  I'm  going  to  be  kissed,  you  little 
silly,"  he  protested.  "And  d'you  think  it's  Druids 
she's  crying  about?  I'll  bet  you  it's  sweethearts. 
Cook  cried  like  that  when  her  sweetheart  went  out 
with  Mrs.  Malcolm's  parlor-maid." 

Millicent  judged  it  high  time  to  return  to  lessons. 
So  Robert's  reflections  were  cut  short  by  a  call  for  his 
dates,  while  Ruby  concluded  her  slate  of  pot-hooks 
seated  on  Millicent' s  knee,  with  her  rosy  cheek  against 
the  governess'.  Meanwhile,  Punch  rolled  a  disquiet 
eye.  From  what  I  know  of  the  canine  language,  I 


A  HUNDRED  MILES  AWAY.  185 

cannot  help  thinking  his  sense  of  justice  pricked  him 
with  the  disturbing  reflection  that  the  governess  had 
perhaps  been  beaten  for  a  certain  dismembered  chair- 
leg. 

Everything  has  compensations,  and  even  that  morn- 
ing of  mornings  Millicent  took  comfort  at  Ruby's  sym- 
pathetic lips  and  Punch's  rough  affection.  The  shadow 
cast  by  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox  was  temporarily  laid. 

"If  you  would  like  baby  to  go  with  us,  Mrs.  Barling, " 
she  said,  later,  "I  should  like  to  take  him." 

"But,  my  dear,"  Mrs.  Barling  demurred. 

"Oh,  it  is  all  right,"  Millicent  insisted.  "The  air 
will  do  him  good.  And  it  does  not  matter  in  the  least 
what  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox  thinks  of  me,  you  know." 

Eventually  Mrs.  Barling  was  pursuaded;  but  she 
had  misgivings.  She  loved  the  baby  to  go  out,  yet 
was  it  fair  to  allow  a  girl  so  nicely  brought  up  as  Miss 
Rivers  evidently  was  to  lose  caste  in  Winkworth  esti- 
mation by  being  seen  to  wheel  a  mail-cart  like  a 
nursemaid? 

"If  you  go  down  West  Street  you  can  get  to  the 
common  without  meeting  a  soul, ' '  she  said,  earnestly. 
"And  remember,  I  did  not  ask  it  of  you." 

"I  do  not  mind  in  the  least,"  the  governess  main- 
tained; "and,  besides,  nobody  here  knows  me." 

"That  is  true,  of  course,"  Mrs.  Barling  assented. 
Then  her  heart  lightened.  It  would  do  the  baby  so 
much  good  to  get  a  morning  ride.  It  was  but  rarely 
Parkins  had  finished  her  work  in  time  to  take  him. 

"And,  good  gracious!  who  am  I?"  Millicent 
demanded  trenchantly  of  herself,  as  she  pushed  the 
mail-cart  through  the  gate  of  Poplar  Villa.  "Who 
am  I  that  I  should  be  too  great  to  wheel  a  baby's  cart?" 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling,  looking  after  her  and  waving  her 
hand  to  the  departing  baby,  well  within  shelter  of  the 
hall,  for  she  was  wearing  only  a  shabby  wrapper,  and 
Mrs.  Malcolm  sat  at  her  window,  caught  her  breath  in 
a  spasm  of  apprehension.  It  occurred  to  her  all  at 
once  that  Millicent  would  be  mistaken  in  the  eyes  of 
Winkworth  for  a  mere  nursery  governess — and  even 
the  smaller  tradespeople  kept  nursery  governesses. 


1 86  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

Tears  of  vexation  sprang  to  her  lids.  She  had  had  a 
more  than  usually  exhausting  wrestle  with  the  side- 
board, and  it  was  the  morning  for  washing  the  Wor- 
cester; moreover,  the  baby  was  teething,  and  had 
kept  her  awake  in  the  night.  Altogether,  life  seemed 
more  than  she  could  bear. 

"There  is  always  something,"  she  said,  wearily, 
taking  refuge  in  the  dining-room.  "If  one  does  any- 
thing on  an  impulse,  and  without  properly  considering 
it,  it  is  sure  to  be  a  false  step.  And  now  everybody 
will  think  she  is  only  a  nursery  governess  on  sixteen 
pounds  a  year. ' ' 

She  sank  into  a  chair  and  cried  a  little.  In  the  glow 
of  her  scrubbing  and  her  rubbing,  and  reviewing  the 
treasures  of  her  temple,  she  had  struck  out  of  her 
waiting  soul  a  spark  of  premonition  that  somebody 
would  surely  call  that  afternoon.  So  vivid  had  it  been 
that  she  had  replaced  the  ribbon  of  the  bulrushes  by 
a  new  fresh  length,  heretofore  laid  in  reserve  for  the 
evening  reception  it  was  her  breathless  ambition  to 
give  whensoever  her  circle  in  Winkworth  should  have 
reached  the  dimensions  of  such  a  possibility.  The 
length  had  been  bought  at  a  sale,  because  it  would  have 
been  a  cruel  extravagance  to  allow  so  manifest  a 
bargain  to  escape,  even  though  its  use  were  a  circum- 
stance remote  and  hypothetical ;  and  this  morning  she 
had  tied  it  in  a  nice  full  bow  about  the  bulrushes,  had 
put  all  the  best  shades  on  her  lamps  and  had  laid  a 
piece  of  classical  music  on  the  rack  of  the  opened 
piano,  where  it  stood  with  a  careless  air  of  belonging 
to  a  person  who  could  waste  a  morning  on  sonatas, 
having  no  need  to  spend  an  anxious  hour  of  consulta- 
tion with  the  cook,  nor  two  hours  in  the  fashioning  of 
little  garments. 

But  now  the  spark  of  premonition  had  burned  out. 
Nearly  three  whole  years  had  passed,  she  ruminated 
bitterly,  and  nobody  had  called.  Why  should  anybody 
call  to-day?  Of  what  use  were  her  ministrations  and 
her  temple?  Of  what  use  was  her  ribbon  bow?  Who 
would  care  that  she  had  an  ear  for  Wagner,  or  that 


A  HUNDRED  MILES  AWAY.  187 

she  was  a  pretty  performer  on  the  new  piano  Kew  had 
bought  for  her? 

Then  she  reflected  that  dust  was  invading  this  same 
new  piano,  and  all  to  no  purpose.  She  dragged  herself 
up,  and,  crossing  the  hall,  unlocked  the  door,  and 
looked  into  the  drawing-room. 

She  stood  in  breathless  admiration.  How  sweet, 
how  incomparably  sweet  it  was !  The  Lely,  shrouded 
in  the  dim,  religious  light,  recalled  a  corner  of  Hamp- 
ton Court  Palace ;  the  melancholy  harp,  with  its  air  of 
sad  refinement,  the  freshly-washed  Worcester  and 
dejedner  services,  the  smart  new  ribbon  bow,  the  shil- 
ling's worth  of  flowers  arranged  this  morning  to  excep- 
tional advantage! 

She  left  the  piano  as  it  was — it  was  so  charmingly 
simulative  of  a  leisure  person,  of  a  do  Ice  far  niente 
luxurious  woman  of  ease.  Her  worn  face  relighted. 
vShe  tripped  upstairs,  humming  softly  in  her  throat 
the  three  bars  in  the  piece  on  the  piano  which  were 
all  of  harmony  and  rhythm  Wagner  had  been  able  to 
put  into  some  pages  of  music.  She  tripped  to  her 
room,  and  proceeded  to  plump  up  the  sleeves  of  her 
pretty  tea-gown.  It  was  growing  old-fashioned,  she 
remarked  a  little  ruefully,  though  it  had  only  been 
twice  worn.  She  would  need  to  remodel  it.  Remodeled 
it  would  look  like  new.  Then  she  dressed  her  hair 
with  exceptional  pains.  First  callers  call  early.  And 
after  lunch  she  had  letters  to  write,  and  the  baby  to 
mind,  while  Parkins  washed  up  hurriedly  in  time  to 
dress  by  three,  and  so  be  ready  to  open  the  door.  The 
spark  of  premonition  had  fanned  itself  into  a  glow 
again.  Somebody  would  surely  call ! 


188  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

MRS.  ASKEW-HICKOX. 

If  I  had  a  noble  house, 

Like  to  my  neighbor's  there, 
Velvet  over  the  floor, 

Oaken  and  marble  stair. 

When  Millicent,  spurred  by  that  goad  of  the  squalor 
of  things,  and  warmed  by  the  heartening  touch  of 
"Yuby's"  lips,  had  made  an  indignant  curvet  into 
their  humanness,  and  resolved  to  wheel  out  the  baby 
and  forever  efface  herself  from  the  countenance  of 
Mrs.  Askew-Hickox,  she  had  not  altogether  calculated 
the  cost.  As  heiress  of  a  hundred  thousand  pounds, 
she  might  have  done  it,  for  then  it  would  have  shown 
as  some  mere  eccentricity  of  wealth,  or  as  a  symptom 
of  original  character,  rather  than  as  evidence  of  lack 
of  means.  As  Lady  Kershaw,  she  might  have  done  it, 
because  her  position  would  have  been  so  unassailable 
that  anything  she  might  choose  to  do  would  sanction 
the  doing  of  that  thing.  But  as  Millicent  Rivers,  the 
penniless  daughter  of  a  manufacturer  of  furniture- 
polish,  and  governess  in  the  family  of  a  not  very  suc- 
cessful stockbroker,  such  a  step  would  but  damn  her 
forever  in  Winkworth  socially ;  and*  I  am  not  at  all  sure 
that  Winkworth  would  be  clear  in  its  mind  that  such 
action,  in  determining  her  class,  would  not  in  some 
way  affect  the  grade  of  salvation  to  be  allotted  her 
hereafter. 

Vaguely  conscious  of  these  things,  Millicent,  with  a 
defiant  air  and  flushing  cheek,  pushed  the  mail-cart 
valiantly  before  her  down  the  High  Street.  Rob 
walked  on  one  side  of  her,  resting  a  hand  upon  the 
cart-rail,  while  with  the  other  he  brandished  the  whip 
which  was  Punch's  guide  in  life.  Ruby  trotted  on  her 
left,  clutching  the  governess'  hand  in  her  soft,  gloved 
fingers.  Punch  brought  up  the  rear,  sober,  observant, 
and  snorting. 


MRS.  ASKEW-HICKOX.  189 

"I  say,  you're  a  lady,  aren't  you?"  Robby  queried, 
suddenly. 

"Yes,"  said  Millicent,  sharply. 

The  corner  chemist,  coming-  to  his  door  to  cast  a 
casual,  genteel  eye  over  the  arrangement  of  his  shop 
window,  had,  by  way  of  a  diversion,  extended  the  range 
of  that  eye,  with  a  lingering  flattery,  upon  the  vision 
of  the  handsome  girl  obviously  escorting  an  employ- 
er's children. 

So  Millicent  responded  "Yes,"  with  some  asperity. 

"Mother  doesn't  take  baby  out,"  Rob  stated,  "and 
Miss  Scamp  wouldn't  ever." 

"Scamp  wouldn't  ever,"  Ruby  gurgled,  suddenly 
cutting  three  successive  capers  in  the  air,  out  of  the 
joy  of  her  infantile  life. 

"How  can  wheeling  baby  out,  when  the  air  does 
him  good,  make  me  not  a  lady?"  Millicent  demanded, 
severely. 

"Well,  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  doesn't,"  Robert  stated 
stoutly. 

"Ascox  doesn't,"  Ruby  insisted,  with  another 
curvet. 

"You  shut  up,  you  silly,"  Robert  snapped;  "you 
don't  even  know  who  she  is." 

' '  Yuby  do, ' '  insisted  Yuby. 

"Who  is  she,  then?" 

"She's — she's  a — Queen  of  a  Fairies." 

The  mendacity  of  the  hazard  was  manifest. 

"Pooh!"  said  Robert,  cracking  his  whip,  "that's 
rot,  because  she  isn't.  She's  only  a  lady,  and  lives  in 
a  big,  anormous  house,  with  a  wide  road  up  to  it — and 
a  little  house  at  the  gate. ' ' 

Punch,  with  an  apprehensive  eye  on  the  whip,  trot- 
ted to  the  other  side  of  Millicent. 

"Is  Ascox  a  big,  anormous  giant  in  a  beanstalk?" 
Ruby  demanded,  opening  her  lids  with  a  solemn 
affectation  of  terror. 

"Is  she,  Robby?"  Millicent  laughed. 

' '  Pooh  ! ' '  said  Robby,  waxing  in  exasperation, 
"you're  always  being  such  a  silly  idiot;  she  isn't  any 
bigger  than  other  people. ' ' 


190        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Isn't  bigger  van  me,"  submitted  Ruby  compla- 
cently. 

"Then,  why  did  you  say  she  was  a  giant?"  her  oppo- 
nent demanded,  maddened. 

Ruby  caracoled  three  times  round  a  postal  pillar- 
box,  with  the  air  of  a  person  resolved  to  do  or  die, 
then  she  returned  to  her  place  beside  the  mail-cart. 

"  'Cos  she's  got  a  tail,"  she  cried,  with  a  breathless 
burst  of  gleeful  irresponsibility. 

"Shouldn't  you  like  to  hit  her,  Miss  Rivers?"  Robby 
said,  choking  with  rage.  "When  she  doesn't  say  just 
what  I  say,  she  says  just  the  silliest  rot.  There  she  is 
now  going  to  cadge  flowers  out  of  that  old  beggar 
woman.  She's  always  doing  it." 

The  "beggar  woman"  smoked  a  pipe.  She  sat  on 
an  upturned  tub,  with  a  basket  of  chrysanthemums  and 
violets  before  her.  Her  coarse-aproned,  ample  lap 
was  filled  with  blossoms,  in  process  of  tying  into  pen- 
nyworths. 

To  her  Ruby  trotting  forward  at  a  breakneck  pace, 
suddenly  halted,  and  began  to  edge  backward,  sidling 
with  a  modest  diffidence,  a  shy  chin  cuddled  into  the 
strings  of  her  Dutch  bonnet,  a  wheedling  eye  upon 
the  woman's  face. 

"Ach,  shure,"  cried  the  latter,  with  a  lightening 
countenance,  and  removing  her  pipe,  "ach,  shure,  if  it 
isn't  me  howly  innacint,  wid  'er  face  like  a  rose- 
dhrame,  and  'er  diamant  e'e.  Good  luck  t'ye  swate- 
heart,  an"  will  ye  take  a  blessed  blossom  from  ould 
Bet  this  blessed  mornin'?" 

Ruby  signified  her  willingness  by  smiling  coyly,  at 
the  same  time  stretching  out  a  chubby  hand. 

The  old  woman  wiped  her  mouth  punctiliously  on  a 
corner  of  her  apron,  then  bent  her  mumbling  lips 
against  the  little  hand. 

"The  Lord  luv'  and  bless  ye  fur  yer  swate  beauty, 
that's  like  a  glame  o'  Paradise,"  she  muttered. 

She  picked  out  her  finest  bunch  of  violets,  and  put 
it  into  the  child's  hand.  Ruby  came  dancing  away, 
her  gold  curls  leaping  under  her  velvet  bonnet,  her 
trophy  poised  high. 


MRS.  ASKEW-HICKOX.  191 

'  'Mother  gave  me  a  penny  for  her, ' '  Robert  whis- 
pered. 

As  he  passed  he  dropped  the  coin  among  the  flowers. 
The  woman  started  up.  She  flung  the  penny  violently 
after  him. 

"An'  kape  yer  dhirty  money,  little  sorr, "  she  cried, 
with  a  full  nostril  and  flaming  eye.  "Is  it  me  that 
mustn't  give  a  blossom  to  the  blessed  baby  fur  the 
love  av  givin',  but  ye  must  be  flinging  yer  dhirty 
penny  afther  me  that  didn't  want  yer  dhirty  pennies!" 

"I  say,  what  does  she  mean?"  Robert  queried. 
"She's  always  giving  Ruby  flowers,  and  mother  told 
me  to  pay  her  a  penny  when  she  does. ' ' 

'  'Perhaps  she  will  pick  it  up  presently, ' '  Millicent 
said. 

Yet  when  they  passed  on  their  return,  the  woman 
and  her  flowers  were  gone,  but  the  penny  still  lay 
where  she  had  tossed  it. 

The  Baby  Barling  was  a  melancholy  baby.  Some 
of  the  curse  of  the  creed  of  Appearances  had  descended 
upon  him.  That  spectre  of  a  father,  trampled  in  the 
city  for  his  exertions  to  buy  boots  and  bread  and  but- 
ter for  his  children,  which  was  the  somewhat  exag- 
gerated view  the  lowered  tone  of  Mrs.  Barling's  mind 
moved  her  to  take  of  the  banalities  of  commerce,  had 
presided  at  his  birth.  Moreover,  the  wear  and  tear 
of  an  eternal  polishing  and  furbishing  had  flecked  his 
structure  with  more  dust  and  debris  than  nature 
designed  in  the  constitution  of  babies.  Much  of  his 
birthright  of  fitness  and  brightness  had  been  rubbed 
into  drawing-room  knicknacks,  and  ere  ever  he  was 
born  his  soul  was  sick  from  frequent  combatings  with 
balking  fretworks  and  with  niggly  carved  pilasters. 

He  was  therefore  a  very  melancholy  baby,  and  just 
now  his  melancholy  was  exaggerated  by  the  exigen- 
cies of  dentition.  Being  a  baby,  he  should  have  been 
a  pagan,  and  a  hedonist,  drunk  with  the  wine  of  new 
life ;  bubbling,  sparkling,  frothing  with  Bacchanalian 
joy  in  the  bottle,  that  modern  spurious  makeshift  for 
the  soft  warm  life-source  denied  to  the  cold  uncom- 
forted  cheek  of  nineteenth  century  babydom.  For  our 


192         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

modern  cricketing,  bicycling  Amazon  has  sacrificed 
her  mother  privilege  to  feats  of  strength.  Hers  are 
not  limbs  and  tender  body,  touched  to  finer  issues  and 
sweet  purposes.  Under  a  regime  of  athleticism  she 
has  stripped  from  her  frame  the  curves  and  mysteries 
of  womanhood,  to  stand  confessed  a  thing  of  bone  and 
sinew,  a  system  of  joints  and  levers,  a  mere  locomotor 
apparatus,  bereft  of  those  fine  subtleties  which  are  the 
very  essence  of  womanhood,  the  balm  and  comfort  of 
a  toilsome  world.  Unused  powers  dwindle — so  much 
against  the  fireside,  unemancipated  woman.  But 
overused  powers  absorb  into  their  current  foices  which 
should  go  to  make  other  and  yet  higher  powers — so 
much  against  the  extreme  of  athleticism,  restlessness, 
and  wearisome  assertiveness  afflicting  modern  woman 
like  a  madness. 

We  women  are,  for  the  most  part,  ill-balanced  crea- 
tures, darting  off  at  a  tangent  according  to  the  fashion 
of  the  hour ;  but  the  worst  of  bad  fashions,  so  far  as  the 
future  of  the  race  and  human  happiness  are  concerned, 
is  that  which  has  inspired  us  with  a  feverish  ambition 
to  ape  the  least  qualities  of  men. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  Barling  baby.  Mrs. 
Barling  had  not  spent  her  maternal  reserves  in  bicy- 
cling or  football.  She  had  the  failings  of  an  elder 
period,  when  the  bias,  which  seems  to  be  inseparable 
from  the  feminine  mind,  was  domesticity.  She  had 
no  interest  beyond  the  threshold  of  her  home  (other 
than  that  of  desiring  her  neighbors'  friendly  counte- 
nance), and  having  so  narrow  an  horizon,  the  things 
within  it  assumed  undue  importance.  The  Amazon 
who  has  succeeded  the  Housewife  has  not  at  all  eman- 
cipated herself  from  this  habit  of  bias ;  she  has  merely 
shifted  its  platform.  She  possibly  ignores  the  polish 
of  her  chairs,  the  immaculacy  of  her  doorsteps,  and, 
it  may  be,  the  asepticism  of  her  baby's  bottles.  Her 
tangent  is  her  golf-stroke,  her  bicycle  "scorch,"  her 
fencing  record,  or  probably  her  classical  or  mathemat- 
ical tripos,  or,  again,  her  season  of  "scalps";  but  it  is 
none  the  less  a  tangent  from  the  path  of  human  living. 
So  long  as  she  recognizes  it  as  a  tangent,  an  effort 


MRS.  ASKEW-HICKOX.  193 

toward  a  larger  horizon,  all  is  well ;  she  will  retain 
her  equilibrium,  and  realize  its  due  proportion  to  the 
intrinsic  factors  of  existence ;  but  this,  alas !  she  does 
but  rarely.  She  mistakes  it  for  a  fine,  cross-country 
cut  to  freedom  and  development,  whereas  there  are  in 
human  progress  no  short  cuts.  She  of  one  generation 
may  repudiate  her  womanhood  and  deify  her  muscles ; 
but  another  coming  after  her  will  be  under  obligation 
to  discharge  the  twofold  debt  of  her  own  and  a  pre- 
vious generation's  womanly  due  to  evolution. 

For  nature  has  need  of  woman's  special  powers,  or 
woman  would  not  be.  And  athleticism  is  beyond 
everything  the  grave  of  woman-power. 

In  the  meantime,  the  melancholy  Barling  baby — 
melancholy  for  the  blight  of  Winkworth's  social  ostra- 
cism, which  had  specked  his  mother's  soul  with  mildew, 
thereby  afflicting  him  with  parental  hypochondriasis 
and  a  weak  digestion — was  scarcely  able  to  realize  his 
good  fortune  that  fine  morning  of  the  governess' 
heroism.  If  there  was  one  thing  before  another  which 
diverted  his  attention  from  the  problems  forever 
haunting  it — viz.,  whether  the  delight  of  a  bottle  of 
sweet  milk  compensated  for  the  subsequent  weight 
and  discomfort  of  it  in  his  small  stomach ;  whether  the 
visionary  hypothesis  of  one  day  being  a  man  made  up 
for  the  miseries  of  croup  and  teething,  and  many  kin- 
dred scepticisms  bred  of  indigestion — that  one  thing 
was  a  morning  ride  in  his  mail-cart.  And  owing  to 
the  rigorous  exactions  of  his  arch-enemy,  Mrs.  Askew- 
Hickox,  he  but  rarely  enjoyed  a  morning  ride.  For 
Parkins  had  so  many  and  such  multifarious  duties  to 
perform  in  the  sweeping  and  garnishing  of  Poplar  Villa 
in  preparation  for  that  lady's  coveted  call,  that  Par- 
kins had  no  time  for  wheeling  him  before  the  after- 
noon. And  mother — well,  mother's  heart  ached  sorely 
enough  for  his  small  leaden  face  and  weakly  stomach, 
but  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  had  set  an  interdict  on  the 
maternal  pushing  of  mail-carts.  Had  he  but  known 
her  for  all  the  griefs  and  disabilities  she  put  upon  him, 
he,  and  it  may  be  a  hundred  other  genteel  Winkworth 
infants,  would  have  lifted  their  poor  pallid  little  fists 

13 


194  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

in  anger  to  heaven  against  her  that  she  so  curtailed 
their  innocent  joys. 

For  I  tell  you,  a  fellow  of  eighteen  months  old,  not 
very  strong  on  his  legs,  found  it  an  immeasurable 
relief  to  get  away  from  that  problem  of  whether  life 
were  in  any  way  worth  living  and  to  ride  a  triumphal 
progress  through  the  streets  of  a  metropolis  like 
Winkworth !  There  was  a  fine  warm  sun,  far  warmer 
than  a  nursery  fire,  and  a  soft  refreshing  breeze  to 
cool  a  teething  chap's  hot  cheeks;  there  were  horses 
galloping  and  trotting — nearly  as  fine  as  the  tin  one 
clutched  in  his  fist;  there  were  tram-cars  laden  with 
people,  enough  to  take  your  breath  away;  there  were 
dogs  running  in  and  out ;  yet  there  you  were,  safe  and 
sound,  tucked  up  in  your  triumphal  car,  and  Robby 
standing  guard  with  whip  in  hand.  There  was  friendly 
old  Punch  following  soberly  beside  you,  snorting  and 
snuffing  as  though  he  were  at  home.  There  was  Ruby 
in  her  red  coat,  skipping  joyfully  before  you,  stopping 
now  and  again  to  clap  her  gloved  hands  in  your  face. 
There  were  fine  shop-windows  with  red  things,  and 
blue  things,  and  shining  things,  a  feast  for  a  chap's 
eyes,  laid  out  for  you  to  wonder  at.  There  were 
organs — and  sometimes  a  monkey.  And  once  there 
had  been  a  bear !  There  were  other  chaps  too  in  mail- 
carts  or  perambulators,  luckier  chaps,  with  nurses  to 
take  them  riding  every  morning,  and  chaps  even  still 
more  fortunate,  whose  mothers  were  so  far  beneath 
the  countenance  of  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox  as  to  wheel 
their  little  ones  about  themselves.  Then  there  were 
queer-looking  jolly  little  creatures,  with  dirty  faces, 
who  munched  hunks  of  bread  and  treacle,  and  rode 
happy  as  kings  in  rough  wooden  boxes  with  odd 
wheels  knocked  on  to  them,  brothers  and  sisters  in 
harness,  mother's  old  shawl  pinned  about  them — chaps 
with  pustules  on  their  faces  and  a  chronic  need  of 
handkerchiefs,  but  jolly  enough  looking.  There  were 
flowers,  and  trees,  and  green  grass,  and  ponds  with 
ducks  on  them  and  boys  sailing  boats,  and  dogs  bark- 
ing for  sticks  and  swimming.  There  were  carriages 
and  vans  and  watering  carts  and  noise ;  why,  bless 


MRS.  ASKEW-HICKOX.  195 

you!  there  was  nearly  as  much  noise  as  the  liveliest 
fellow  could  want ! 

The  Barling  baby  forgot  his  aching  gums  under 
stress  of  his  excitement.  A  cart  had  gone  by  with 
jingling  bells  about  its  harness  and  a  man  cracking  a 
whip.  The  baby  lifted  his  pallid  hand  with  the  tin 
horse  clutched  in  it,  and  pointed. 

"Moogey,"  he  said,  and  smiled,  defying  hypochon- 
driasis  and  problems.  Then,  emboldened  by  his 
confidence,  and  by  the  stranger  governess'  friendly 
nod,  he  adventured  another  comment  on  the  marvels 
besetting  his  brain. 

An'  doggie,"  he  said,  indicating  a  passing  sheep. 
"An'  daddy,"  he  persisted,  encouraged  by  success  to 
claim  kinship  with  a  magnificent-looking  masculine, 
who  had  stepped  into  the  gutter  to  evade  the  mail- 
cart. 

Exultant  with  his  victories  in  nomenclature,  he  even 
faintly  clapped  his  hands. 

"Why,  you  poor  little  creature,"  Millicent  said 
beneath  her  breath,  "who  would  have  thought  that 
you  could  smile?  I  will  wheel  you  out  every  morning, 
Hickox  or  no  Hickox. ' ' 

"Keekox, "  said  the  baby,  with  a  gurgle  to  have 
melted  the  heart  of  even  that  Moloch.  Whereupon 
Millicent's  soul  so  warmed  to  him  that  she  mentally 
flung  a  gauntlet  in  the  teeth  of  Wink  worth's  female 
autocrat. 

"If  you  would  only  come  out  and  show  yourself,  you 
would  see  how  little  I  care  for  your  opinion,  you 
oppressor  of  dyspeptic  babies  and  blighter  of  women's 
lives,"  she  reflected  truculently,  forgetting  that  she 
carried  no  standard,  wielded  no  pike,  and  wore  no 
badge  whereby  her  subversive  sentiments  could  be 
recognized. 

As  chance  would  have  it,  and  to  so  have  it  chance 
did  not  turn  very  much  out  of  its  way,  for  Winkworth 
had  but  one  High  Street,  and  this  was  the  resort  of 
Winkworth  fashion,  Millicent  enjoyed  the  opportunity 
she  believed  herself  to  covet.  For  they  had  not  passed 
St.  Mark's — the  Church  of  the  Select — more  than  two 


196         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

minutes,  when,  just  in  advance  of  them,  a  victoria 
pulled  up  before  a  shop  in  the  Arcade.  Millicent  felt 
a  tug  at  her  gown. 

"That's  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox,"  Robbie  said,  in  an 
awed  whisper;  "and  that's  Clifford  sitting  by  her." 

The  oppressor  of  babes,  the  blighter  of  lives,  the 
crowned  and  cruel  autocrat  of  Millicent 's  imagination 
vanished.  A  tall,  thin,  neat-featured  woman,  hand- 
somely dressed  in  black,  descended  crisply  from  the 
carriage,  and,  turning  her  head  neither  to  the  right 
nor  to  the  left  of  her,  passed  across  the  pavement  into 
the  shop.  She  carried  neither  tomahawk  nor  scalp, 
nor  any  weapon  of  offense  beyond  the  chill  severity  of 
her  composed  features  and  the  cutting  penetration  of 
her  glance.  She  wore  no  vestment  typical  of  puissance 
other  than  a  velvet-beaded  mantle,  which  fell  over  her 
spare  shoulders  with  a  style  universally  supposed  to  be 
unattainable  this  side  the  channel. 

She  was  not  a  beautiful  woman,  nor,  judging  from 
the  shallowness  and  narrowness  of  her  pale  forehead, 
would  you  have  supposed  her  to  be  a  clever  woman. 
Certainly  she  did  not  look  a  kind  one.  Yet  all  eyes 
turned  reverently  after  her,  and,  as  she  entered  the 
shop,  a  hush  rustled  down  the  High  Street. 

Millicent  experienced  a  balked,  nipped  feeling  which 
checked  the  glow  of  her  defiance,  for,  in  rising  to  leave 
her  carriage,  the  glance  of  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  had 
rested  for  an  instant  on  the  mail-cart  and  the  govern- 
ess. In  that  moment  Millicent 's  imaginative  trans- 
port vanished.  The  world  was  no  place  for  heroics  or 
humanities!  The  world  was  no  place  of  fields,  and 
sky,  and  flowers,  and  baby-gurglings.  The  world  was 
one  great  High  Street  of  shops  and  Paris  mantles  and 
conventions.  And  girls  who  wheeled  mail-carts  did, 
doubtless,  their  duty  in  that  station  to  which  it  had 
pleased  God  to  call  them ;  but  it  had  pleased  Him  with 
Divine  perspicacity  to  call  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  to  some 
other;  therefore,  her  glance  meeting  Millicent 's, 
betrayed  nothing  of  contempt  in  it,  merely  a  flicker  of 
haste  as  its  focus  readjusted  itself  to  some  object  more 
befitting  its  attention. 


MRS.  ASKEW-HICKOX.  197 

Millicent  felt  her  cheeks  tingle.  Her  impulse  had 
precipitated  itself  into  the  region  of  fact,  and  there 
was  that  in  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox's  glance  which  told 
her  that  fact  was  irrevocable. 

Henceforward  her  position  in  Winkworth  was  a 
position  of  exclusion.  Then,  "Good  gracious!"  she 
expostulated  with  herself,  '  'what  do  I  care  about  Wink- 
worth?" 

That  was  all  very  well,  for  at  present  she  was  living 
in  the  glow  of  new  departure.  But  when  the  glow  of 
new  departure  has  given  place  to  the  gray  of  perma- 
nence, one  has  to  live  in  the  world,  and  the  world  one 
has  to  live  in  may  be  Winkworth. 

And  how  was  Winkworth  to  know — as  she  would  not 
be  likely  to  inform  it — that  she  was  not  compelled  by 
circumstance  to  propel  babies  in  mail-carts  nor  to  teach 
children  spelling,  but  that  she  might,  if  she  so  wished 
it,  maintain  an  establishment  nearly  as  pretentious  as 
that  affected  by  the  Askew-Hickox? 

At  this  juncture,  however,  Millicent' s  reflections 
were  cut  short,  for  Punch,  scenting  "a  Minns,"  was 
sniffing  up  and  down  the  pavement,  and  round  about 
the  smart  victoria  wheels,  above  which  lolled  Clifford 
Hickox,  his  shell  jacket  and  gray  trousers  effectually 
concealed  beneath  a  crest-emblazoned  rug.  Robby, 
awed  by  the  magnificence  of  the  tall  footman  who  in 
his  turn  was  solicitous  about  his  well-proportioned 
calves,  considering  that  bulldogs  were  about,  cracked 
his  whip,  shouting  and  exhorting,  but  to  little  purpose, 
for  Punch's  conviction  of  the  neighborhood  of  "a 
Minns"  was  obstinate,  and  though,  by  keeping  his 
nose  and  eyes  depressed,  he  missed  the  well-known 
hated  stove-pipe,  beneath  which  Clifford  watched  him 
with  the  apprehension  of  experience,  yet  he  refused  to 
leave  the  spot. 

Eventually  he  was  dragged  away  by  sheer  force,  a 
maneuver  requiring  the  combined  muscularity  of  Milli- 
cent and  Rob,  while  Ruby  cracked  the  whip  above  the 
heads  of  all,  with  danger  to  each. 

"Didn't  you  know  it  was  Clifford  Hickox,  you  silly 
fool?"  Rob  demanded  of  him  irefully.  But  this  was 


198        "WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

expecting  too  much  from  even  a  dog  of  Punch's  sagac- 
ity. "A  Minns"  was  a  Minns,  and  so  to  be  treated — 
with  the  sole  and  saving  clause  of  Mrs.  Minns'  pres- 
ence. 

"Mammy's  lamb!  And  did  he  have  cheeks  like 
rosy  apples!"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  cooed  rapturously, 
as  she  lifted  her  darling  from  the  mail-cart.  What 
did  it  matter,  indeed,  if  Miss  Rivers  were  mistaken  for 
a  scullery-maid,  so  long  as  baby  had  plucked  such 
apple-blushes  from  the  morning  wind ! 

"Moogey,"  he  murmured,  condensing  his  experi- 
ences for  the  maternal  ear,  "an'doggies — an'  Keekox!" 

"Oh,  yes,  mother,"  Robby  broke  in  breathlessly, 
"we  saw  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  in  her  carriage,  and 
Punch  was  after  Clifford.  And  there  was  a  footman 
ever  so  high  standing  up  by  the  carriage." 

"Oh,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  said,  releasing  a  compunc- 
tious eye  from  the  flushed  softness  of  the  baby's  cheeks 
to  scan  the  governess'  face.  "Why  didn't  you  go 
round  by  the  common?  She  never  drives  that  way." 

"Oh,  I  didn't  mind,"  the  governess  protested. 

"How  brave  of  you,"  her  employer  murmured. 
Then  she  questioned  eagerly:  "How  did  she  look?" 

' '  She  looked  very  well, ' '  Millicent  returned.  ' '  She 
doesn't  look  very  pleasant." 

"Oh,  I  never  heard  that  she  is  pleasant,"  Mrs.  Kew- 
Barling  said,  shaking  her  head.  "And  what  did  she 
wear?" 

"Black.  A  black  bonnet  with  steel  trimmings,  and 
a  velvet  mantle." 

"The  one  with  bugles?"  Mrs.  Barling  queried,  with 
bright  eyes.  "Why,  she  has  worn  that  a  long  time. 
She  had  that  when  I  had  my  cape  with  the  sealskin 
collar.  Did  she  notice  the  children?" 

"I  don't  see  how  anybody  could  help  it,"  Millicent 
returned,  adroitly;  "everybody  looks  at  them — espe- 
cially at  Ruby." 

"Spesh'ly  at  me,"  that  person  said,  ruffling  her  curls. 

"Had  you  got  your  gloves  on,  dear,  when  Mrs. 
Askew-Hickox  passed?"  her  mother  demanded,  anx- 
iously. 


MRS.  ASKEW-HICKOX.  199 

"Askox  is  a  big,  anormous  giant,  's  big  as  a  house," 
asserted  Ruby. 

"You  great  silly,  that  was  the  footman,"  Robert 
said,  contemptuously.  "Do  you  think  Mrs.  Askew- 
Hickox  wears  breeches?' ' 

"Askox  wears  breeches,"  echo  said. 

Whereupon  Robby,  whose  patience  with  her  had 
been  tried  to  straining  point,  in  addition  to  which  his 
growing  tissues  were  suffering  from  a  famine,  fell 
upon  her  tooth  and  nail,  thumping  at  her  scarlet- 
coated  back. 

Ruby  was  no  person  to  suffer  injury  without  repri- 
sal, and,  dallying  a  moment  to  relieve  herself  of  gloves, 
she  turned  upon  him,  and  proceeded  to  avenge  her 
wrongs  by  grasping  portions  of  his  face  and  clothing 
in  her  fat  fists.  It  was  not  a  very  effectual  method  of 
warfare,  her  grip  being  hampered  by  plumpness  and 
her  nails  infantinely  soft,  but  she  accompanied  it  by 
a  peculiar  fierce  and  fixed  expression  of  eye,  and  by 
savage  bursts  of  "booing,"  meant  to  strike  terror  into 
the  enemy's  heart. 

The  baby,  alarmed  by  this  unexpected  outburst, 
and  languid  from  the  reactionary  effects  of  morning 
air  and  metropolitan  excitement,  began  to  whimper. 
Punch,  as  on  all  occasions  whereupon  his  young  mas- 
ter and  mistress  settled  their  differences  by  personal 
conflict,  retreated  to  a  corner  and  sat  there  sniffing 
distressfully,  now  and  again  making  sudden  short 
incursions  upon  the  heels  and  calves  of  one  or  the 
other,  according  as  he  considered  help  was  needed  in 
the  interests  of  fair-play. 

So  the  morning  ended  somewhat  sadly. 

Even  Millicent,  after  separating  the  assailants  and 
disrobing  Ruby,  on  reaching  her  room  succumbed  to 
the  luxury  of  a  free  five  minutes'  cry. 

"How  can  I  ever — ever  bear  it?"  she  sobbed,  mis- 
erably. "In  two  hours  they  will  be  coming  out  of 
church ! ' ' 


200  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

CHAPTER  XXV." 
"DAMN  WINKWORTH!" 

"  Oh,  let  me  be  myself!     But  where,  O  where 

Under  this  heap  of  precedent,  this  mound 
Of  customs  modes,  and  maxims,  cumbrance  rare, 
Shall  the  Myself  be  found?" 

Mr.  Kew-Barling  occasionally  returned  home  from 
the  city  in  good  spirits.  On  these  occasions  he  would 
bring  with  him  a  hare,  or  a  few  pounds  of  salmon,  or 
a  turbot  skewered  in  a  matting  basket.  Sometimes  he 
brought  a  pound  of  special  and  expensive  tea,  which 
he  presented  to  Mrs.  Kew-Baiiing  with  a  perfunctory 
kiss  and  an  air  of  casualness,  which  were  a  British 
protest  against  anybody  suspecting  him  of  conjugal 
sentiment  or  any  particular  sympathy  with  Mrs.  Barl- 
ing's tastes. 

"Warren  was  getting  a  packet  for  his  wife,  so  I 
thought  I  would  bring  you  a  packet, ' '  he  would  excul- 
pate himself;  "not  that  I  approve  of  you  drinking  s6 
much  tea;  I  am  sure  it  is  that  which  makes  you  nerv- 
ous. ' ' 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  would  flush  with  a  faint,  pathetic 
color  in  her  faded  cheeks. 

"You  extravagant  man,"  she  would  cry,  shaking  a 
thin,  playful  finger  at  him,  with  an  air  which  recalled 
the  Molly  Barling  of  the  photograph  upstairs.  "Now, 
I  do  believe  you  paid  as  much  as  five  or  six  shillings  a 
pound  for  it ;  the  scent  is  delicious. ' ' 

And  the  tea  was  kept  for  Saturday  afternoons  or 
Sundays,  or  for  other  occasions  when  Mr.  Barling 
would  be  at  home  to  profit  by  its  rare  aroma.  A  little, 
however,  was  always  held  in  reserve  for  that  notable 
occasion  whereon  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox  should  honor 
the  drawing-room  of  Poplar  Villa. 

Mr.  Kew-Barling  sometimes  brought  a  pair  of  new 
kid  gloves  with  beaver  cuffs  or  special  colored  stitch- 


"DAMN  WINKWORTH."  201 

ings,  or  a  gay  silk  handkerchief,  and  once  a  pair  of 
pink  resetted  garters,  which  had  caught  his  eye  in  the 
shop  where  he  bought  his  shirts. 

Mrs.  Barling  blushed  and  laughed,  unfolding  them. 

''They're  perfectly  sweet,"  she  said,  "and  such 
darling  rosettes !  but,  Kew,  they  are  far  too  pretty  to 
wear  underneath." 

Even  Mr.  Barling  reddened  a  little,  Millicent  being 
present.  They  had  seemed  all  right  in  the  shop,  but 
here  in  the  dining-room,  with  the  chairs  standing  stiffly 
about  the  mahogany  table,  they  did,  perhaps,  look  a 
little  French  and  improper. 

"Oh,  well,  my  dear,"  he  said,  hurriedly,  "you  know 
I  don't  understand  this  kind  of  thing,  but  I  thought, 
perhaps,  they  might  come  in ;  and  the  man  bothered 
me  to  buy  them." 

"He  never  guessed  what  a  domesticated,  dowdy  wife 
you  have  at  home,  dear, "  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  submitted, 
wistfully.  "I'm  years  and  years  older  than  you, 
though  I  was  seven  years  younger  when  we  were  mar- 
ried. ' ' 

"It's  all  this  confounded  rubbing  and  scrubbing, 
and  making  and  mending,"  Mr.  Barling  broke  out, 
fiercely.  "I'm  sure  I  wish  to  heaven  I  had  left  you 
seven  years  younger,  and  hadn't  spoiled  your  life  by 
interfering  with  it." 

' '  Oh,  Kew, ' '  Mrs.  Kew  remonstrated,  aghast  at  this 
outbreak,  "and  then  there  would  never  have  been 
Robby,  and  Ruby,  and  the  baby. ' ' 

"Well,  I  can't  see  what  comfort  they  are  to  you," 
he  said;  "it  seems  to  me  you're  forever  drudging  for 
them,  making  petticoats  and  mending  stockings.  We 
were  far  better  off  when  we  lived  in  a  cottage,  end 
could  afford  to  take  life  pleasantly." 

"Oh,  but,  Kew — we  should  never  have  got  into  soci- 
ety ;  nobody  would  ever  have  called. ' ' 

"Well,  if  they  only  call  because  we  pay  a  hundred  a 
year  for  our  house,  and  our  children  wear  embroidered 
petticoats,  I  wouldn't  give  that"  (Mr.  Kew-Barling 
snapped  his  big  thumbs),  "for  their  friendship." 

"One  must  make  a  circle.     The  children  will  be 


202         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

growing  up,  and  they  must  have  society ;  and  it  is  very 
lonely  for  us,  not  having  a  soul  to  speak  to — and  with 
the  house  so  beautiful,  and  everything  so  nice — 

"Well,  I  don't  want  them,"  Mr.  Barling  grumbled; 
"but  I  suppose  it  is  dull  for  you." 

"It  gets  a  little  on  one's  nerves,"  she  sighed,  "to 
see  people  always  passing,  and  to  know  there's  the 
tray  of  pretty  cups  and  the  silver  teapot  and  best  cloth 
all  waiting  ready,  if  they  would  only  call  and  be  neigh- 
borly. Sometimes,"  she  added,  impressively,  "I  go 
upstairs  and  examine  myself  in  the  glass  to  see  if  I 
haven't  spots  all  over  my  face,  or  some  other  horrible 
thing  wrong  with  me  that  we  are  so  avoided.  Oh,  I 
know  it  is  terribly  silly,  but  things  get  on  one' s  nerves 
so,"  she  ended,  with  a  sobbing  laugh. 

"Do  you  think  she  looks  strong?"  Mr.  Barling 
inquired  abruptly  of  Millicent,  when  his  wife  had  hur- 
ried off  at 'the  baby's  cry. 

"She  is  rather  nervous,"  Millicent  admitted. 

"Nervous!  She  is  a  bundle  of  nerves;  she  just 
wears  herself  to  death.  She  has  aged  ten  years  since 
we  came  here ;  and  she  was  the  happiest,  merriest  girl 
when  I  married  her.  Sometimes  I  feel  as  though  I 
could  take  a  horsewhip  and  horsewhip  those  women 
into  the  house.  There  isn't  another  woman  in  the 
place  as  kind-hearted  and  clever,  nor  one  with  such 
pretty,  refined  ways;  and  she's  just  fretting  herself 
into  an  invalid." 

"Oh,  somebody  is  sure  to  call,"  Millicent  asserted, 
buoyantly. 

"So  we  have  said  for  three  years,"  he  answered 
grimly. 

When  Mr.  Kew-Barling  returned  from  the  city — 
with  the  exception  of  those  rare  occasions  whereon 
luck  had  given  him  an  unexpected  lift — he  was  gen- 
erally monosyllabic  until  dinner  was  half  over.  A 
man  who  has  been  wrestling  from  nine  till  six  with 
professional  manglers  takes  time  to  recover  his  breath, 
and  "Mr.  Barling  had  rarely  recovered  his  before  the 
joint  appeared. 

Poplar  Villa,  for  all  the  little  Winkworth  thought  of 


"DAMN  WINKWORTH."  203 

it,  was  a  financial  undertaking  for  a  man  who  had 
started  out  with  very  little  capital,  exceptional  hon- 
esty, and  no  commercial  influence.  Moreover,  in 
addition  to  the  strain  of  keeping  up  the  appearances 
incumbent  on  a  villa  fifty  per  cent  beyond  his  means, 
he  had  heavy  insurance  dues  to  pay,  for  one  could  not 
leave  the  wife  and  Ruby  to  the  mercies  of  the  mang- 
lers.  Above  all,  he  had  set  a  determined  will  upon 
forcing,  by  financial  success,  that  recognition  for  his 
wife  in  Winkworth  which  her  endeavors  and  the  gen- 
tilities of  Poplar  Villa  had  so  far  failed  to  win.  Wink- 
worth  called  on  some  people  who  had  little  money, 
but  Winkworth  never  failed  to  call  on  any  who  had 
much.  He  would  make  enough  to  compel  Winkworth 
to  call  on  Mrs.  Barling.  The  worst  of  it  was,  he 
reflected,  glancing  surreptitiously  toward  her  haggard 
face,  he  stood  in  danger  of  being  unable  to  do  this 
while  she  had  health  enough  or  hope  enough  to  profit 
by  it. 

His  mind,  harassed  for  her,  anxious  and  strained,  he 
lost  thought  of,  or  was  too  spent  at  the  end  of  his 
day's  work  for  any  of  the  little  tendernesses  and  atten- 
tions which  are  the  food  of  an  emotional  woman's  life. 
Had  he  cared  less  for  her,  he  might  have  shown  her 
more  affection,  for  then  would  his  mind-tension  on 
her  behalf  have  been  less. 

Many  a  time  when  his  short  answers  filled  her  eyes 
with  tears,  he  was  mentally  and  manfully  establishing 
her  in  a  house  as  fine  as  that  of  Askew-Hickox,  or 
picturing  her  wrapped  in  the  set  of  furs  she  had  so 
admired  in  St.  Paul's  churchyard,  driving  through 
Winkworth  in  a  smart  victoria  of  her  own. 

Nevertheless,  he  was  a  far-seeing  man,  and  he 
reverted  always  to  his  original  standpoint. 

"We  were  a  hundred  times  happier  when  we  lived 
in  a  small  house  and  took  things  easily  and  pleasantly. 
You  didn't  so  often  get  a  new  frock,  and  your  bonnets 
were  not  so  Parisian,  but  you  had  such  a  healthy  color 
and  such  spirits,  you  always  looked  the  prettiest,  best 
dressed  woman  anv where. ' ' 


204        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Oh,  but  Kew, "  she  would  demur,  "we  were  not  at 
all  in  a  smart  set,  you  remember. ' ' 

"I  don't  know  about  'smart,'  "  he  would  reply, 
"they  were  vastly  pleasant.  I  know  I  wish  often 
enough  that  Jackson  or  Mortimer  lived  near  enough 
to  come  in  and  smoke  a  friendly  pipe  on  Sunday  after- 
noons, or  in  the  evenings. ' ' 

"But,  dear,"  she  would  demur  again,  "you  forget 
that  Mr.  Jackson  actually  kept  a  shop.  We  did  not 
know  it,  Miss  Rivers,  when  we  called  upon  them; 
nobody  knew  it.  They  thought  he  was  wholesale  and 
only  had  an  office,  till  one  day  Mrs.  Mortimer  saw  his 
name  over  the  door,  and  his  dog-cart  standing  before 
it." 

"I  don't  care,"  Mr.  Barling  asserted,  doughtily. 
"He  was  a  downright  nice  chap,  and  had  had  a  uni- 
versity education. ' ' 

"Only  a  German  university,"  Mrs.  Kew  interposed. 

"Well,  Germany  turns  out  a  few  cultivated  men," 
her  husband  insisted,  with  a  whimsical  smile.  "He 
was  a  splendid  chemist — posted  in  the  latest  theories 
and  inventions — and  I  have  never  met  a  man  of  better 
principle  or  manners. ' ' 

"Oh,  I  didn't  say  he  wasn't  nice,"  Mrs.  Barling 
admitted;  "but  he  had  no  right  to  expect  to  be  in  the 
society  of  professional  people.  Of  course,  he  ought 
never  to  have  gone  to  college.  It  gave  him  notions 
above  his  class — because  his  father  and  his  grand- 
father had  been  shopkeepers  before  him. ' ' 

"Well,  I  tell  you,"  Kew  asserted  huffily,  "there  isn't 
a  man  in  Winkworth  fit  to  hold  a  candle  to  him  in 
point  of  brains.  I  don't  say  there's  nothing  in  class 
— there  is,  of  course,  when  class  means  coming  of 
good  stock — but,  at  the  same  time,  I  reserve  the  right 
to  take  a  man  on  his  merits. ' ' 

Mrs.  Barling  drummed  a  hand  with  some  impatience 
on  the  table. 

"If  you  live  in  a  world, "  she  said,  decisively,  "you 
must  do  as  the  world  does.  And  I  shouldn't  be  at  all 
surprised  if  the  reason  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox  hasn't 
called  on  us  is  because  she  has  somehow  heard  that 


"DAMN  WINKWORTH."  205 

we  knew  the  Jacksons  when  we  lived  at  Clapham. " 

' '  That  may  be  as  it  may  be, ' '  Mr.  Barling  answered, 
irritably,  "though  I  can't  say  it  sounds  probable. 
Still,  for  all  their  style,  Hickox  hasn't  half  the  culture 
or  manners  of  Jackson.  And  as  to  principles — well, 
I  told  you  about  that  burlesque  actress — " 

"Kew,"  his  wife  admonished  him,  blushing  toward 
Millicent. 

"Oh,  well,  my  dear,"  Mr.  Barling  insisted,  "we 
live  in  the  world,  as  you  say. ' ' 

Still,  he  was  somewhat  abashed.  The  "young  per- 
son" remains  yet  a  factor  in  the  minds  of  middle-class 
people — even  of  the  stratum  which  is  upper,  but  not 
quite  smart  enough  to  fringe  the  mantle  of  an  upper- 
most ten  thousand. 

Neither  he  nor  Mrs.  Barling  wotted  of  a  certain 
Lady  Alicia  of  Millicent's  acquaintance,  who  could 
possibly  have  given  either  of  them  points  on  this  same 
prohibited  topic  of  burlesque  actresses! 

But  turn  this  subject  of  the  comparative  virtues  of 
appearances  and  no  appearances  as  it  would,  Mrs. 
Kew-Barling  always  harked  back  with  an  impressive 
little  sigh  to  the  same  refrain : — ' '  If  we  had  remained 
at  Clapham  we  should  never  have  got  into  society." 

"We  had  friends,"  Kew-Barling  would  grunt,  men- 
tally shouldering  again  that  burden  of  renewed  and 
still  more  fierce  hostilities  against  the  manglers. 

"Yes,  Kew,"  Mrs.  Barling  would  assent,  looking  up 
from  her  embroideries  or  bonnets;  "but  they  were 
really  not  the  least  bit  smart,  you  know." 

Then  Barling  would  possibly  stalk  off,  frowning,  to 
the  library,  pausing  in  the  hall  to  pick  up  his  bag,  and 
retiring  with  it  for  the  evening  to  devise  new  ways  of 
getting  even  with  the  manglers,  and  so  relieving  his 
anxious  little  task-mistress  of  the  ban  of  non-smart- 
ness. 

Barling  was  a  man  of  sterling  honesty  and  fibre. 
When  Mrs.  Kew  confided  to  him  Millicent's  resolve  to 
wheel  out  the  baby,  he  set  his  strong  hand  down  on 
the  table  and  the  subject. 

"I  will  not  allow  it,"  he  insisted;  "and  you  should 


206          WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

not  have  allowed  it,  Molty.  The  girl  has  her  living 
to  get,  and  we  must  not  impose  on  her  good  nature." 

"But  baby  got  such  a  lovely  color  in  his  cheeks, 
dear;  and  after  it  he  slept  soundly  for  two  whole 
hours. ' ' 

"I  don't  doubt  that  it  would  do  him  good, "  her  hus- 
band responded  a  little  ruefully,  for  he  somehow 
always  felt  the  baby's  melancholy  weigh  upon  his 
conscience.  "Of  course  it  would  do  him  good.  But 
Miss  Rivers  was  not  engaged  as  a  nursemaid,  and  it 
would  tell  against  her  getting  another  position. ' ' 

Finally,  after  many  pleas  and  representations  on 
Mrs.  Barling's  part,  for  she  had  set  her  heart  on  baby 
riding  every  morning,  Mr.  Barling  conceded  so 
much: 

"Suppose  we  were  to  give  her  an  extra  five  or  ten 
pounds  yearly, ' '  he  suggested. 

"I  don't  think  that  would  meet  the  case,"  Mrs. 
Barling  murmured,  with  a  puzzled  air.  "Actually,  I 
think  it  would  be  more  conventionally  proper  to  give 
her  five  or  ten  pounds  less.  I  would  wheel  him  my- 
self— only  too  joyfully,"  she  added.  "I  should  love  to 
see  the  darling  enjoy  himself.  Only,  of  course,  it 
would  just  ruin  us  in  Winkworth.  It  would  be 
improving  his  health,  but  destroying  his  caste." 

"Oh,  you  mustn't  do  it,"  Mr.  Barling  said,  shortly. 

Sundry  amenities,  such  as  the  offer  of  a  "Times"  or 
"Telegraph,"  the  proffer  of  a  match,  or  a  monosylla- 
bic exchange  of  confidences  upon  the  subject  of  the 
weather  had  of  late  transpired  between  himself  and 
one  or  two  of  the  men  who  had  traveled  to  town  in  the 
same  carriage  with  him  during  the  last  three  years. 
Who  knew  but  that  these  might  not  be  thin  ends  of 
wedges?  No,  indeed!  it  would  never  do  for  Mrs. 
Kew-Barling  to  be  seen  pushing  the  mail-cart.  None 
of  the  wives  of  these  men  wheeled  out  their  babies. 

He  had  it  out  later  with  Millicent.  But  Millicent 
stood  to  her  guns. 

"Nobody  here  in  Winkworth  knows  me,"  she  said, 
quietly;  "and  I  don't  think  a  governess  has  any  social 
position  worth  considering." 


"  DAMN  WINKWORTH."  207 

"Well,  I  was  not  regarding  it  from  that  point,"  he 
said,  bluntly.  "I  am  a  practical  man,  and  used  to 
looking  at  things  from  a  business  standpoint ;  and  I 
honestly  believe  it  would  tell  against  you  in  getting 
another  situation. ' ' 

"I  hope  you  don't  wish  me  to  do  that,"  Millicent 
smiled. 

"Heavens,  no!"  he  said,  emphatically.  "Mrs.  Barl- 
ing and  the  children  are  devoted  to  you — " 

"Then,  please  let  me  have  my  way.  I  don't  see  that 
it  is  of  the  slightest  consequence  if  I  am  taken  in 
Winkworth  for  a  nursery  governess,  or  even  for  a 
nursemaid.  In  any  case,  Winkworth  would  not  be 
likely  to  call  upon  me." 

I  believe  Mr.  Barling  murmured,  "Damn  Wink- 
worth!"  beneath  his  iron-gray  mustache. 

As  he  stood  facing  his  young  dependent's  clear  eyes 
and  fine  looks,  it  occurred  to  him  that  if  Winkworth 
masculinity  possessed  a  spark  of  sense  or  manly  feel- 
ing, it  would  not  find  a  girl  so  clever,  handsome,  and 
amiable  at  all  beneath  its  notice — governess  or  no  gov- 
erness! 

It  was  Mr.  Barling's  creed  that  every  woman  should 
marry  and  have  a  husband  to  look  after  her,  and  a 
home  and  children.  It  was  also  his  creed  that  this 
was  every  woman's  creed,  and  it  did  not  occur  to  him 
to  blame  her.  It  was  nature,  he  said,  and  every  man 
deserving  the  name  ought  only  to  be  proud  to  under- 
take his  share  of  the  bargain.  He  did  not  understand 
sex  problems.  Here  was  a  healthy,  handsome,  amia- 
ble young  woman ;  there  was  her  masculine  counter- 
part. What  was  the  obvious  thing  to  do?  Why,  to 
join  them  in  marriage,  of  course,  and  to  let  the  young 
woman  make  a  home  and  bear  children,  and  let  the 
young  man  work  cheerfully  and  do  his  best  to  keep 
that  home  and  wife  and  children.  That  the  young 
man  was  not  to  the  young  woman's  taste,  or  vice  versd, 
was  a  fine  distinction  in  affinities  undreamed  of  in  Mr. 
Barling's  philosophy. 

"It  is  her  duty  to  be  fond  of  her  husband,  and,  if  he 
is  a  kind,  good  fellow,  and  does  his  best  for  her  and 


2o8        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

th.e  babies,  why,  of  course  she  will  be  fond  of  him," 
he  said,  putting  the  matter  into  a  nutshell.  But  the 
matter  of  marriage  is  one  of  those  things  which  will 
not  remain  in  a  nutshell.  It  is  like  the  Genii-in-the- 
bottle  of  the  "Arabian  Nights."  It  has  been  let  out, 
and,  once  released,  has  assumed  such  dimensions  and 
unexpected  developments  that  it  will  not  readily  adjust 
itself  to  the  bottle  again. 

But  Mr.  Barling  had  his  kernels  of  life  still  snugly 
stowed  in  shells. 

And,  at  that  moment,  seeing  in  Millicent's  healthy, 
handsome  womanhood  an  affirmation  of  his  creed  that 
every  woman  needed  for  the  completion  of  her  life  and 
happiness  a  home  and  husband — not  a  particular  man 
for  husband,  but  any  affectionate,  capable  fellow  in  a 
position  to  support  a  wife — he  reflected,  with  a  rush  of 
chagrin,  that  his  isolated  position  in  Winkworth  would 
not  give  the  girl  a  chance. 

"Damn  Winkworth!"  he  muttered  again,  under 
cover  of  his  mustache,  as  he  considered  her  with  a 
manly,  sympathetic  eye. 

And  I  think  Millicent  carried  her  point,  as  regarded 
the  baby,  more  by  stress  of  his  commiseration  for  her 
in  her  slender  matrimonial  prospects,  than  by  any 
effect  of  eloquence. 

"My  father  was  not  a  professional  man,"  she  found 
courage  to  say.  After  a  fortnight  of  Winkworth 
indeed,  and  of  poor  Mrs.  Barling's  strivings  to  propi- 
tiate it,  her  stiirdy  spirit  had  regained  its  native  inde- 
pendence. Gentility  tasted  like  ashes  on  her  tongue. 
It  appeared  to  her  rather  a  fine  thing  to  be  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  furniture-polish  maker,  who  had  declined  any 
claim  or  pretension  to  social  polish,  but  had  stood 
before  his  fellows  on  his  merits.  "I  am  not  a  person 
of  family, ' '  she  told  Mr.  Barling.  ' '  My  father  was  a 
manufacturer  of  furniture-polish. ' ' 

"By  Jove,  you  are  never  a  daughter  of  John  Rivers' 
'Unparalleled  Polish'?"  he  protested. 

She  nodded. 

"I  knew  him.  One  of  the  finest  old  fellows  I  ever 
met.  Sturdy,  straightforward — honest  as  daylight. 


"  DAMN  WINKWORTH."  209 

But  I  thought  he  made  a  mint  of  money?  I  thought 
he  left  four  hundred  thousand  pounds?" 

"He  left  three  hundred  thousand  of  it  in  charity," 
Millicent  explained,  beneath  her  breath. 

"And  the  other  hundred?  I  know  he  had  only  one 
child." 

"He  did  all  that  was  right,"  Millicent  maintained. 

"Well,  I  suppose  he  had  some  views  about  work," 
her  employer  said,  seeing  that  she  did  not  wish  the 
subject  pursued.  "He  had  views  about  most  things. 
But  I  can't  say  I  think  he  did  right.  If  you'd  been  a 
son  now — young  men  with  money  would  generally  be 
better  without  it.  But  girls — girls  are  a  different 
matter.  Still,  of  course,  they — they  get  settled." 


210  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
"F'OWERS  FUR  MAMMY." 

"When  I  remember  something  which  I  had, 

But  which  is  gone,  and  I  must  do  without, 
I  sometimes  wonder  how  I  can  be  glad, 

Even  in  cowslip  time  when  hedges  sprout. 
It  makes  me  sad  to  think  of  it — but  yet 
My  days  will  not  be  better  days,  should  I  forget." 

"Everything  passed  off  well,  dear  Millicent, "  Lady 
Kershaw  wrote,  "as  things  radically  wrong  often  do 
pass  off  well  on  the  surface.  The  church  was  charm- 
ingly decorated,  for  though  the  wedding  was  quiet,  the 
Leicester  and  Marnham  girls,  being  old  friends  of 
Alicia's,  spent  the  previous  afternoon  in  massing  it 
with  flowers. 

"Alicia,  of  course,  looked  beautiful — her  best, 
indeed — a  rare  enough  achievement  for  a  bride.  But 
Alicia  had  slept  well,  and  Alicia  had  not  shed  a  tear. 
So  Alicia's  eyelids  showed  no  suspicion  of  redness,  and 
she  was  exemplarily  calm.  She  was  a  model  bride. 
Her  voice  was  clear;  her  responses  inimitably  modu- 
lated. Under  her  veil  she  was  demure  and  perfect. 
She  removed  her  glove  at  the  proper  moment,  and 
managed  her  train  and  bouquet  to  perfection.  You 
might  have  supposed  she  had  been  through  the  cere- 
mony many  times  before.  I  am  not  fond  of  Alicia,  as 
you  know.  Perhaps  I  should  have  liked  her  better  had 
she  comported  herself  less  like  a  paragon.  Richard 
behaved  very  decently.  He  neither  forgot  to  bring 
nor  dropped  the  ring.  And  they  met  no  funerals  on 
their  way  to  church,  nor  did  ravens  croak,  or  any  other 
evil  omen  happen!  Which  shows  that  evil  omens 
were  signally  remiss  about  their  duties.  For  if  ever — 
however,  let  me  not  f orbode ! 

"It  is  strange  how  I  say  this  to  you — who  am  not 
given  to  confidences  or  to  candor.  I  miss  you  fifty 
times  a  day.  I  suppose  I  am  growing  old  and  fidgety, 


"F'OWERS  FUR  MAMMY."  211 

and  not  so  fond  of  my  own  society  as  I  was.  Alicia  is 
no  company  for  anybody  of  her  own  sex,  certainly  not 
for  a  humdrum  old  woman  like  me.  I  cannot  say  she 
tries  to  be.  If  she  were  capable  of  emotion,  I  might 
imagine  myself  odious  to  her.  I  am  going  away.  The 
Towers  are  no  longer  the  Towers  and  my  home,  since 
Alicia  set  about  improving  us.  No  doubt  we  needed 
improvement — badly ;  but,  as  Alicia  has  improved  us, 
I  feel  only  like  a  stranger.  She  has  had  only  the 
reception  rooms,  the  lower  staircase,  and  her  own 
apartments  redecorated.  The  rest  of  the  house  she 
has  left  shabby,  because  it  so  suited  her  dear  shabby 
old  bookworm,  Richard !  She  wore  a  pink  bow  about 
her  neck  and  a  new  hat  when  she  said  it,  and  her 
shabby  old  bookworm  knew  better  than  to  suspect  so 
charming  a  looking  creature  of  motives  less  charming 
than  her  looks. 

' '  My  dear,  when  you  are  older,  you  will  maybe  know 
more  about  men  than  you  do.  Nature  has  cruelly 
handicapped  some  of  them,  and  these  sometimes  the 
best  of  them.  Richard  is  suffering  from  delusions 
which  should  enable  me  to  have  him  temporarily 
locked  up  and  saved  from  their  consequences.  All  he 
will  get  from  Alicia  he  could  get  from  the  flimsiest, 
trickiest,  most  shallow  of  painted  creatures,  and  he  is 
tying  himself  to  her  for  life  under  the  delusion  that 
she  is  the  woman  and  companion  to  complete  his 
existence.  Take  her  away  from  her  corrupt  surround- 
ings, says  he,  and  she  will  bloom  into  an  ^ngel.  God 
help  him!  say  I,  for  he  will  not  have  been  married  to 
her  a  week  before  he  will  have  discovered  his  fallacy. 
She  hasn't  it  in  her  to  hold  a  man  like  him  much 
longer  than  a  week. 

"Her  brother  gave  her  away.  But  neither  the  earl 
nor  her  mother  condescended  to  put  in  an  appearance, 
or  sent  her  so  much  as  a  pair  of  gloves.  She  impresses 
on  us  with  a  curious  obstinacy  the  importance  of  not 
betraying  a  word  about  her  godmother's  generosity 
for  fear  of  bringing  that  good  person  into  trouble. 
The  old  lady,  it  seems,  has  retreated  into  a  convent  to 
repent  her  of  her  sins — hence  Alicia's  fortune. 


212        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"The  Dtmstan's  lent  them  their  place  in  the  High- 
lands for  the  honeymoon.  Alicia  wished  to  go  to 
Paris,  but  Ludwig  was  there,  so  she  changed  her 
mind.  The  name  of  Ludwig  is  like  a  red  rag  to  her. 
It  reminds  her  of  what  she  has  lost. 

"And  now,  dear,  write  me  about  yourself.  How 
long  will  you  sustain  your  little  comedy?  Are  you  not 
tired  of  middle-class  life,  and  whipping  knowledge  into 
underbred  darlings?  Are  you  not  hankering  after 
freedom  and  the  flesh-pots?  Somers  and  Co.  in  Pic- 
cadilly are  reliable  house-agents  when  you  need  their 
services.  If  you  wish  it  I  will  send  them  a  line.  I 
know  just  the  kind  of  establishment  you  need,  and 
invite  myself  to  spend  a  fortnight  with  you  in  the 
autumn.  You  will  require  a  chaperone.  I  have  her 
in  my  eye — a  round,  soft,  comfortable  body,  sound  of 
mind  and  sense  and  without  an  angle. 

"Vaux  has  been  pestering  me  about  you.  Three 
times  during  the  last  fortnight  he  has  called — once  to 
inquire  after  my  Angora,  which  somebody  had  informed 
him  was  suffering  from  influenza ;  once  to  learn  how  I 
keep  my  rose  trees  free  from  fly ;  and  the  third  time 
I  believe  he  was  reduced  to  consulting  me  as  to  the 
best  way  of  pickling  walnuts.  He  is  not  a  person  of 
profound  resources,  but  he  has  sufficient  foresight  to 
know  where  a  nice  little  wife  is  to  be  found.  His 
actual  knowledge  is,  however,  somewhat  vague,  as 
all  the  information  vouchsafed  him  by  me  was  that 
that  nice  little  person  is  at  present  staying  with  people 
in  Kent.  He  knows  some  Kent  people  he  informed 
me  with  joy  in  his  eye,  and,  strangely  enough,  had 
been  considering  paying  that  county  a  visit  very 
shortly,  so  if  you  do  not  wish  to  be  seen  pushing  a 
baby's  perambulator  (I  am  only  jesting,  dear,  I  am 
aware  that  your  duties  do  not  include  this),  avoid  the 
Kentish  high  road!" 

Millicent  wept  bitterly  above  the  first  part  of  this 
letter.  Had  she  been  questioned,  she  would  have 
stated  her  unwavering  conviction  that  the  marriage 
would,  of  course,  take  place ;  but  she  now  discovered 
one  little  ray  of  hope  that  the  heavens  would  fall,  or 


"F'OWERS  FUR  MAMMY."  213 

some  other  tremendous  revolution  of  affairs  occur  to 
prevent  it  which  had  been  lurking  in  her  heart. 

However,  nothing  in  the  nature  of  a  cataclysm  had 
occurred,  and  the  honeymoon  was  three  days  old.  She 
wept  so  sorely  that  Robby's  stockings,  which  she  had 
been  mending  with  more  scrupulousness  than  skill, 
were  quite  damp. 

She  laughed  with  some  lightening  of  heart  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  note.  Every  girl  likes  to  possess  an 
admirer,  even  though  the  admiration  be  wholly  on  one 
side! 

"Now,  what  would  he  think  if  he  really  were  to 
meet  me?"  she  wondered,  with  a  rising  color.  She 
consoled  herself  with  the  consideration  that  Kent  is  a 
county  of  some  size,  and  Winkworth  not  even  its  cap- 
ital town.  Then  she  reread  the  first  portion  of  the 
letter,  and  effectually  quenched  her  spirits. 

Fortunately  for  her,  Robby  and  Ruby  were  a  hand- 
ful that  morning. 

Robby  insisted  upon  learning  his  lessons  on  his 
head,  in  order  to  test  for  himself  the  disadvantages  of 
the  position,  having  overheard  the  carrier  inform  the 
cook  when  she  had  inscribed  her  name  to  the  receipt 
of  a  parcel  that  he  ' '  could  have  done  it  as  well  on  his 
head!" 

It  occurred  to  Robby's  inquiring  mind  as  a  novel 
notion  and  one  worth  putting  to  the  test.  So  though 
Millicent  dissuaded  him  from  writing  his  copy  so 
inverted,  she  found  it  waste  of  time  and  force  to 
restrain  him  from  learning  his  grammar  in  that  pose. 

Ruby,  of  course,  followed  suit,  and  mourned  aloud 
on  discovering  the  feminine  disabilities  she  suffered 
from  petticoats,  for  these  descended  like  a  closing 
umbrella  over  her  face  and  eyes,  whensoever  she 
reversed  her  normal  ends.  The  ensuing  darkness  and 
sense  of  suffocation  filled  her  with  dismay.  It  were 
as  though  the  end  of  the  world  and  an  everlasting 
night  had  befallen  her,  and  she  was  extricated,  shaken 
with  sobs,  her  mental  balance  ruined  for  the  morning. 

Till  presently  the  clock  struck  twelve,  on  the  magic 
stroke  of  which  Robby  reinverted  himself  and  hurled 


214        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

his  books  across  the  room,  Ruby  broke  off  short  in  the 
middle  of  a  pot-hook  to  wipe  her  eyes,  and  Punch 
arose  from  his  mat,  stretching  himself  with  an  air  of 
business.  Then  the  door  of  the  schoolroom  was  pushed 
open,  and  the  baby,  hatted  and  coated,  toddled  in  with 
the  gait  and  uncertain  eye  of  an  inebriate.  Arrived 
at  Millicent,  he  rested  his  two  gloved  fmgerless  hands 
on  her  knees,  and,  gazing  up  solemnly  into  her  face, 
ejaculated: 

"Lambulator." 

On  being  assured  that  this  was  his  immediate  fate, 
he  clapped  his  hands  soberly  together,  and  smiled  his 
melancholy  smile.  Then  he  stretched  a  fist  oracularly, 
and  like  some  explorer  indicating  a  vast  and  glorious 
horizon  delivered  himself  of  the  following  prophecy : 

4 '  Gee-gees — doggy — porter. " 

Though  his  gait  and  leaden  complexion  might  have 
laid  him  open  to  a  suspicion  of  being  better  acquainted 
with  the  latter  beverage  than  his  years  justified,  I 
must  explain  on  his  behalf  that  "porter"  was  his  ren- 
dering of  "water"  ;  and  water  in  this  connection  stood 
for  a  pond  on  Winkworth  Common,  a  pond  whereon 
the  youths  of  Winkworth  sailed  their  ships  and  swam 
their  dogs.  This,  which  was  a  mighty  ocean  to  his 
inexperience  and  limitation,  was  a  never-failing  source 
of  marvel  to  him.  In  view  of  it  he  lost  himself  in 
speechless  admiration,  for  it  was  an  ocean  certainly 
sixty  yards  in  circumference  and  fourteen  yards  wide 
in  its  broadest  part.  On  its  shores  and  vast  bosom  it 
may  well  be  imagined  there  was  scope  for  wonder- 
rousing  feats  of  navigation. 

"Now,  if  I,"  said  Millicent,  regarding  him  earnestly, 
"if  I  were  such  a  pitiful,  mean  snob  as  to  rob  you  of 
your  'porter'  for  fear  of  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox,  I  should 
deserve — ' ' 

Speech  or  her  mental  punitive  resources  failed  her. 
She  took  the  baby's  hand  and  conducted  him,  toddling 
with  a  headlong  precipitancy,  toward  the  outhouse 
where  his  fiery  steed,  the  "lambulator, "  stabled  itself. 

"Porter!"  murmured  he,  ecstatically,  and  "Kee- 
kox!"  not,  I  believe,  from  any  special  interest  in,  or 


"F'OWERS  FUR  MAMMY."  215 

knowledge  of,  that  lady,  but  rather  -because  her  name, 
so  rendered  reverberated  pleasantly  betwixt  his  teeth- 
ing gums. 

"Why  do  you  not  come  with  us?  It  would  do  you 
good, ' '  Millicent  urged  upon  Mrs.  Barling,  who  issued 
for  one  breathless  moment  from  the  drawing-room, 
duster  in  hand,  to  see  them  off. 

"Good  gracious!"  Mrs.  Kew  returned,  aghast,  "I 
have  all  that  new  linen  to  mark,  and  the  pillow-cases 
for  the  spare  room  to  embroider,  and  a  lamp-shade  to 
cover  for  the  dining-table. ' ' 

She  kissed  the  baby  hurriedly,  retying  his  bonnet 
strings;  she  pulled  down  Ruby's  shortening  coat,  and 
straightened  Robby's  cap. 

"You  all  need  new  outfits,"  she  observed,  practi- 
cally; "you  begin  to  look  shockingly  shabby.  Why, 
Ruby,  you  are  never  going  to  drag  that  great  big 
basket  with  you — a  great  common  garden  basket. ' ' 

She  sent  one  quick,  reproachful  glance  toward  Milli- 
cent. 

Ruby  flourished  her  prize  ecstatically. 

"F'owers  fur  mammy.  Yuby  pick  'em — daisies  an' 
yoses.  Kite  full. ' ' 

"You  ridiculous  child!  Why,  it  is  a  bushel  basket 
— a  disreputable,  common  thing  that  has  lain  in  the 
shed  for  months.  You  look  like  a  little  tramp,  dar- 
ling. Give  it  to  mammy. ' ' 

Then  there  was  trouble.  Ruby  had  set  her  heart 
on  the  bushel  basket.  Nothing  less  disgracefully  dirty 
or  of  smaller  capacity  would  satisfy  her.  She  clutched 
it  devotedly  with  one  fat  hand,  while  she  fought  for  it 
bravely  with  the  other.  She  stamped  her  feet  in  pan- 
tomimic rage.  She  pleaded  and  expostulated : 

"F'owers  fur  mammy.  Daisies  an'  yoses — Yuby 
pick  'em.  As  full  as  vis,"  indicating  the  great  handle. 

Finally  she  came  to  terms,  and  accepted  a  smaller 
and  more  genteel  receptacle  and  a  threepenny  bit. 
But  her  heart  was  sore,  her  joy  in  life  dimmed.  She 
sobbed  spasmodically,  lifting  the  substituted  basket 
from  time  to  time  ruefully,  as  though  contemning  its 
mean  size.  Nothing  short  of  a  bushel  basket  would 


2i6        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

begin  to  hold  the  boundless  visions  her  generous  soul 
had  conjured  up  of  "f'owers  fur  mammy. " 

' '  I  like  the  children  to  look  nice  when  they  go  out, 
Miss  Rivers,"  Mrs.  Kew  admonished,  reproachfully. 

Millicent's  lips  set.  It  was  her  first  rebuke  in  the 
capacity  of  an  employed.  It  galled  her  like  a  whip. 

Mrs.  Barling,  seeing  its  effect,  spread  balm. 

"I  know  they  are  very  tiresome,"  she  added,  plac- 
ably. "Children,  of  course,  don't  understand.  I  met 
Ruby  half  way  up  the  road  once,  with  an  antimacassar 
pinned  about  her  shoulders  and  a  tall  hat  of  her  father's 
stuck  on  the  back  of  her  head.  Fortunately,  nobody 
saw  her. ' ' 

"She  was  Queen  Victoria  that  day,"  Robby 
explained,  with  some  contempt. 

"Well,  she  is  only  a  baby,"  Millicent  said,  smiling 
in  spite  of  herself. 

But  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  was  tragically  grave. 

"People  might  have  thought  she  wasn't  at  all  nicely 
brought  up,"  she  stated,  seriously,  "for,  to  make 
things  worse,  it  was  Sunday  afternoon. ' ' 

Ruby,  smacking  her  lips  in  recollection,  turned  a 
roguish  look  on  Millicent.  She  pointed  to  a  lamp-post 
down  the  road. 

"  'S  far  as  vat,"  she  cried,  and  vaulted  three  times 
in  the  air.  For  one  space,  at  least,  of  a  Sunday  five 
minutes,  and  for  the  distance  of  some  twenty  yards, 
she  had  flaunted  it  as  a  royal  personage,  with  a  silk 
hat  down  about  her  curls,  and  a  lace  thing  round  her 
shoulders.  It  was  something  to  remember  in  a  hum- 
drum world.  Her  face  was  wreathed  with  rosy  smiles. 

She  forgot  the  limitations  of  her  basket. 

"Yed  and  boo,"  she  murmured,  recalling  the  deco- 
rative values  of  the  antimacassar  and  drawing  a  hand 
from  shoulder  to  knee,  "an'  daddy's  'at." 

Then  they  went  forth  in  a  body  to  the  common, 
while  Mrs.  Barling,  with  a  sigh,  withdrew  once  more 
to  the  cavernous  dim  spaces  of  the  drawing-room. 

Mrs.  Malcolm  of  The  Limes,  that  sun-blinded  and 
window-boxed  cynosure  of  Mrs.  Barling's  envy,  was  a 
childless  widow. 


"F'OWERS  FUR  MAMMY."  217 

She  was  a  "buxom,  cherry-cheeked  person,  of  the 
easy  temper  and  unruffled  geniality  of  one  who  has 
never  been  called  upon  to  make  a  sacrifice  for  any- 
body, or  an  effort  for  herself.  Married  early  to  a  doc- 
tor in  fashionable  London  practice,  her  chief  concern 
had  been  to  so  oil  the  wheels  of  domestic  life  that  the 
roll  of  its  machinery  should  not  disturb  his  overtaxed 
nervous  system,  and  to  so  order  the  cuisine  that  its 
achievements  should  not  harass  his  irritable  digestion. 
Eventually,  crippled  by  his  labors  in  the  cause  of 
soundness,  he  died  in  that  which  should  have  been  his 
prime,  a  dyspeptic  wreck,  leaving  his  widow  bereft 
even  of  that  one  solicitude  as  to  the  conjugal  digestion 
which  had  been  a  stimulus  to  faculty.  Whereupon 
her  faculties  -rolled  themselves  into  a  ball  and  went  to 
sleep. 

The  before-mentioned  gardener  of  the  correct  mind 
looked  after  her  garden,  the  cook  provided  her  table, 
the  boy  in  buttons  cleaned  her  knives  and  steps,  the 
parlor  and  housemaids  ministered  to  her  general  needs. 
Occasionally  she  opened  a  shrewd  eye  and  mouth  for 
the  observation  and  correction  of  domestic  sins  and 
negligences,  or  summarily  supplanted  such  of  her 
dependents  as  were  deceived  into  believing  her  nap- 
ping for  no  better  reason  than  that  her  lids  were 
dropped.  She  was  captious  to  infmitesimality  con- 
cerning the  fit  of  her  rich  gowns,  and  would  return 
her  bodices  to  the  dressmaker  who  clothed  her  again 
and  again  for  the  subjugation  of  some  crease  which 
broke  the  swelling  smoothness  of  her  ample  bulk. 

She  entertained  little,  but  entertained  well.  And 
though  she  had  never  been  known  to  put  herself  about 
for  anybody,  the  genial  magnetism  of  a  well-nurtured 
body  earned  her  the  reputation  of  a  good-natured  one. 

She  subscribed  very  liberally  to  charities,  for,  as  she 
did  not  trouble  to  spend  one  half  her  ample  income, 
there  was  margin  enough  and  to  spare  to  allow  of  her 
being  handsomely  charitable  without  stinting  herself 
of  anything  she  wanted. 

She  had  not  a  care,  and  her  smooth  rotundity  of 
mind  and  body  made  pleasant  contact  for  a  world 


2i8  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

made  up  of  cares  and  angles.  She  had  never  concerned 
herself  at  all  about  the  Barlings.  She  regarded  it  as 
tending  toward  discomfort  to  have  any  acquaintance 
whatsoever  with  one's  neighbors,  whether  these  hap- 
pened to  be  wholly  or  merely  semi-detached.  Next- 
door  acquaintance  had  a  way  of  sending  in  messages 
and  borrowing  things,  to  say  nothing  of  chatting  above 
the  fence  at  odd  and  inconvenient  moments.  Had  it 
not  involved  trouble,  she  would  not  have  grudged 
making  them  presents,  for  she  was  by  no  means 
ungenerous ;  but  she  was  fastidious  about  her  posses- 
sions, and  objected  to  copartnership  in  them. 

She  knew  a  good  deal  more  about  the  Barlings — as 
she  did  about  most  people  and  affairs — than  anybody 
suspected,  for  the  eyes  beneath  her  heavy  lids,  when 
she  troubled  to  use  them,  were  shrewd  and  searching. 
In  her  placid  way  she  rather  liked  the  look  of  Mrs. 
Barling,  and  respected  her  for  her  unintelligible  qual- 
ities of  industry  and  zeal.  For  the  indolent  lids  had 
opened  upon  these,  and  had  even  detected  her  neigh- 
bor's diligent  hands  spreading  tiny  shirts  and  feeders 
on  the  lawn  behind  the  lattice-work.  Had  Mrs.  Kew- 
Barling  been  childless  like  herself,  I  believe  Mrs. 
Malcolm,  despite  her  conviction  of  the  inconveniences 
attaching  to  neighborly  acquaintance,  would  probably 
have  called  on  Poplar  Villa.  But  Mrs.  Malcolm  cher- 
ished a  rooted  aversion  to  children  as  being  subversive 
of  that  serenity  she  prized  beyond  everything. 

Despite  the  lack  of  an  introduction,  some  amenities 
had  passed  between  herself  and  the  children  Barling. 
Before  the  correct-minded  one  suggested  a  barbed 
wiring,  the  top  of  the  fence  between  Poplar  Villa  and 
The  Limes  had  served  Robby  for  purposes  of  eques- 
trian exercise,  with  the  not  rare  result,  when  his  steed 
was  "fresh,"  that  he  would  be  thrown  violently  into 
the  midst  of  Mrs.  Malcolm's  well-kept  flower-beds. 
This,  of  course,  was  not  to  be  tolerated  by  the  correct- 
minded  one ;  and  Mrs.  Malcolm  consented  to  the  barbs 
with  some  reluctance,  for  anything  of  a  barbed  descrip- 
tion was  foreign  to  her  code.  But  she  consented.  The 
correct-minded  one  was  raspy  of  temper  when  his 


"F'OWERS  FUR  MAMMY."  219 

views  were  crossed.     And  he  was  a  bi-weekly  visitor. 

So  Robby  took  to  riding  the  apple-tree  at  the  end 
of  the  garden,  with  the  result  that  the  apple-tree  left 
off  bearing  even  the  very  greenest  fruit. 

Robby,  it  is  needless  to  state,  was  not  slow  in  aveng- 
ing himself  for  that  affront  of  barbed  wiring;  but, 
with  the  injustice  of  youth,  his  vengeance  was  s'laked 
vicariously,  and  the  serenity  of  mind  and  security  of 
skin  of  Mrs.  Malcolm's  Persian  cat  and  Mrs.  Mal- 
colm's pug  were  liable  to  intermittent  violent  disturb- 
ance. Once,  also,  the  center  bed  in  the  lawn  was 
found  to  have  brought  up  a  crop  of  snails,  where  a 
more  desirable  crop  had  been  anticipated,  a  phenom- 
enon which  explained  itself  by  the  track  of  stockinged 
footsteps  and  the  line  of  a  wheelbarrow  abruptly  ceas- 
ing at  the  fence.  Robby  had  also,  in  a  fit  of  engineer- 
ing zeal,  constructed  that  which  he  termed  "foun- 
tains," in  reality  a  series  of  miniature  pits,  scooped  in 
the  unprolific  flower-bed  behind  the  fence.  These, 
bricked  by  odds  and  ends  of  slate  and  platter,  commu- 
nicated one  with  another  by  lengths  of  India-rubber 
tubing  cut  from  the  garden  hose,  so  that  water  poured 
into  a  disused  kitchen  funnel,  adroitly  hidden  beneath 
a  laurestinus,  eventually  found  its  way  into  one  well 
after  another,  finally  bubbling  again  upon  the  surface 
through  a  teapot  spout.  The  whole  was  covered  in 
with  lids  of  wooden  boxes,  carefully  strewn  with  earth, 
so  that  nobody  inspecting  the  unproductive  flower-bed 
would  have  remotely  suspected  the  subterranean  inge- 
nuities tunneling  it.  In  constructing  it,  Robby  had 
firmly  believed  that  water  poured  in  at  the  funnel  end 
would  issue  proudly  from  the  spout  end  in  a  tall 
stream,  possibly  reaching  as  high  as  the  fence,  so  that 
the  garden  of  Poplar  Villa  would,  at  his  command, 
become  the  scene  of  a  foaming  fountain  such  as  he 
had  remarked  in  pictures.  When  he  found,  however, 
the  disabilities  of  water  on  its  level — the  fountain 
proving  but  a  muddy  leakage — in  a  revulsion  of  feel- 
ing he  diverted  its  course,  and,  with  malice  prepense, 
conducted  it  beneath  the  fence,  fitting  the  steam  tube 
of  an  old  bronchitis  kettle  to  such  purpose  that  his 


220        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"fountain"  discharged  itself  amid  the  roots  of  two  of 
Mrs.  Malcolm' s  finest  rose-trees.  The  ensuing  sloppi- 
ness  disagreed  sadly  with  the  rose-trees — for  whenso- 
ever Robert  found  life  oppressive,  or  was  thwarted  in 
one  or  other  of  the  hundred  and  fifty  plots  incubating 
beneath  his  scalp,  he  relieved  his  feelings  by  discharg- 
ing a  can  of  water  down  the  funnel — causing  Mrs. 
Malcolm' s  gardener  to  suffer  in  temper  and  spirits. 

"  It' s  all  along  o'  your  cussedness,"  he  would  address 
the  silently  suffering  rosacea;  "you  gets  manoor  anuff 
fur  'alf  a  dozen,  and  sun  ter  bake  yer  'eds  off,  and  yet 
you  goes  on  grislin' ;  and  grislin' ,  as  if  you  was  planted 
in  a  water  butt!" 

Whereupon  the  sufferers  would  hang  their  heads 
abashed,  oppressed  through  all  their  fibre  by  a  sense 
of  sloppiness  about  the  roots. 

Otherwise,  Robby  did  not  trouble  himself  greatly 
about  Mrs.  Malcolm,  though  with  a  card  of  carpen- 
ter's tools,  presented  to  him  on  his  birthday,  he  man- 
aged to  convert  a  portion  of  the  fence  into  a  hinged 
flap,  admitting  him  at  will  to  her  garden,  and  so  sav- 
ing him  the  labor  of  clambering  the  fence.  It  gave 
him  a  sense  of  power  to  lift  this  flap,  cross  the  garden, 
knock  three  times  on  an  iron  table,  and  retreat  safely 
within  the  paternal  precincts  while  Mrs.  Malcolm 
walked  the  length  of  her  grass  plot. 

That  Mrs.  Malcolm  never  caught  sight  of  a  vanish- 
ing sailor  suit  I  do  not  pretend.  But  Mrs.  Malcolm 
had  the  gift  of  discretion,  and  it  did  not  suit  her 
notions  of  that  which  befitted  her  dignity  to  enter  into 
altercation  with  an  impudent  boy,  nor  to  involve  her- 
self in  a  vexing  correspondence  with  his  parents. 

She  had  never  been  able  to  understand  his  sudden 
disappearance.  He  seemed  to  slip  into  the  fence  like 
air.  I  cannot  say  she  took  any  pains  to  solve  the  mys- 
tery. Hers  was  not  an  inquiring  mind.  One  day, 
however,  the  phenomenon  explained  itself.  She  was 
stooping  above  a  bed  of  pansies — violet  velvety  grim- 
aces— when  the  fence  before  her  swayed.  She  stepped 
to  one  side.  A  portion  of  the  fence  lifted,  disclosing 
itself  as  detached,  then  fell  back  immediately.  She 


"  F'OWERS  FUR  MAMMY."  221 

could  hear  a  puffing  and  blowing,  and  the  grind  of 
something  pushed  against  the  flap.  After  several 
attempts,  a  small  hand,  grasping  a  bushel-basket, 
thrust  itself  through  at  one  corner,  and  succeeded  in 
depositing  the  basket  on  a  pansy-bed.  Then  the  flap 
closed  down  again.  More  puffings  and  pantings,  and 
the  flap  admitted  at  its  lower  border  a  crawling,  strug- 
gling body  in  a  pink  frock,  wearing  a  sun-bonnet  about 
that  end  which  seemed  to  be  the  head  of  it,  and  brand- 
ishing a  knife.  While  this  apparition  wrestled  its  way 
through,  Mrs.  Malcolm  withdrew  some  paces  silently. 
The  pink  pinafored  figure,  having  struggled  to  its 
feet,  turned  its  bonnet  to  the  right  and  to  the  left  of 
it,  sweeping  the  foreground  for  hostilities.  Mrs.  Mal- 
colm, standing  in  its  rear,  was  screened  from  view  by 
the  bonnet  blinkers.  The  pink  person,  evidently  sat- 
isfied that  there  was  a  clear  coast,  recovered  the  basket 
again  with  a  fat  clutch,  gave  one  joyful  curvet  in  the 
air,  then  brandishing  her  knife,  trotted  with  an  air  of 
business  to  the  center  bed  of  Mrs.  Malcolm's  lawn. 
Arrived  there,  she  stood  on  the  grass  edge,  in  the 
meditative  attitude  of  one  about  to  plunge.  Then  she 
set  down  the  basket  on  one  side  of  her  and  the  knife  on 
the  other,  and  proceeded  to  solemnly  divest  herself  of 
her  pinafore.  This  done,  she  folded  it  more  or  less 
neatly,  and  laid  it  carefully  upon  the  shore.  After 
which  she  took  up  her  knife  and  basket,  and  plunged 
into  a  sea  of  hyacinths.  Mrs.  Malcolm,  transfixed  with 
amazement,  found  herself  confronted  by  a  spectacle 
of  everted  petticoats,  calico  frills,  chubby  legs,  and 
white  socks,  these  making  a  firm  and  progressive  sup- 
port for  the  operations  of  a  pair  of  active  hands  and 
elbows.  The  hands  wielded  their  weapon  with  little 
enough  skill,  but  the  tide  of  hyacinths  gave  away,  their 
soft  stems  parting  with  a  juicy  "swish,"  before  the 
hacking  knife. 

Now  and  again  the  pink-frocked  person  paused, 
straightened  the  ache  of  effort  from  her  back,  drew  an 
arm  across  her  face  to  remove  the  dew  of  action,  then 
fell  to  again. 


222         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Good  heavens!"  ejaculated  Mrs.  Malcolm,  "what  a 
little  monster!" 

Recovering  herself,  she  moved  precipitately  across 
the  lawn — as  precipitately,  that  is,  as  her  weight  and 
indignation  allowed.  The  pink-frocked  figure  raised 
itself,  throwing  a  final  trophy  into  the  basket — a  great 
dark  perfect  blossom,  over  which  the  correct-minded 
one  had  delivered  an  oration  that  same  morning.  The 
scent  of  hyacinthine  suffering  filled  the  air.  The  fruit 
of  hyacinthine  growth  half -filled  the  basket.  Ruby, 
reviewing  it,  leaped  four  times  aloft,  after  her  fashion 
of  joy  incontinent.  Then  she  ran  two  triumphal  cir- 
cuits round  the  basket.  After  which  she  laid  down 
her  knife,  clapped  her  hands,  and  proceeded  to  get 
into  her  pinafore. 

Looking  about  for  assistance,  she  espied  Mrs.  Mal- 
colm standing  like  a  statue  of  reproach.  Without  a 
moment*  s  hesitation  she  caught  up  her  knife  and  stood 
on  guard.  Finding  her  large  aggressor  impassive,  she 
assumed  the  frown  which  was  her  fighting  face,  and, 
"booing"  in  her  most  terrific  manner,  made  three  cuts 
in  the  air  with  the  knife.  Having  thus  given  warning 
of  her  intention  in  the  event  of  warfare,  she  placed 
herself  before  the  basket.  Her  pinafore  slipping  down 
over  her  elbows,  however,  she  proclaimed  a  truce. 
She  laid  down  her  knife,  relaxed  her  frown,  and,  trot- 
ting over  to  the  enemy,  commanded : 

"Tie  Yuby's  pinner.     Yuby's  'ands  tant  yeach. " 

So  instructed,  though  still  stiff  with  indignation, 
Mrs.  Malcolm  obeyed.  Then  Ruby  caught  her  by  the 
hand. 

"Turn  an'  see,"  she  gurgled,  tugging  at  her. 
"F'owers  fur  mammy.  Yoses  an'  daisies.  Yuby 
pick  'em.  'Eaps  an'  'caps!" 

Mrs.  Malcolm  suffered  herself  to  be  towed.  She 
stood  above  the  basket  of  blossoms,  eyeing  the  breach 
in  the  ranks  of  their  fellows  with  a  swelling  bosom. 

Such  a  spasm  of  anger  suddenly  overswept  her 
serenity  that  she  was  only  just  saved  from  administer- 
ing the  slap  her  sense  of  justice  told  her  was  more 
than  merited,  by  Ruby  lifting  a  face  framed  in  bonnet 


"F'OWERS  FUR  MAMMY."  223 

frills,  and  pointing  insinuatingly  to  the  outraged  bed. 

"Yuby  yeave  you  some,"  she  explained,  amicably. 
"  'Eaps  an*  'caps.  Yed  an'  boo.  Yoses  an'  daisies. 
Yuby  oney  take  one — two — free  f'owers" — she  speci- 
fied them  on  her  fingers — "fur  Yuby's  mammy." 

Mrs.  Malcolm  gazed  severely.  Her  center  bed! 
What  would  the  correct  one  say?  How  should  she  meet 
his  wrath? 

Ruby  assumed  a  solemn  visage.  Then  she  pleaded 
guilefully : 

"Poo-er  mammy.  Yuby's  mammy's  'ed  aches  all 
day  to-mollow." 

Without  further  ado,  she  encircled  the  basket  handle 
with  her  plump  hands,  but  she  failed  to  lift  it.  She 
planted  her  feet  firmly  in  the  grass,  set  her  mouth, 
blew  out  her  cheeks,  and  essayed  to  drag  it.  It  yielded 
a  little.  Puffing  and  panting,  and  with  a  crimsoning 
face,  she  tugged  it  a  few  yards.  Then,  an  easier 
method  suggesting  itself,  she  trotted  back  to  her  vic- 
tim. 

"Yoo  tally  it  fo' me,"  she  said,  smiling  seductively 
up  at  her;  "too  'eavy  fo'  Yuby.  Yoo  tally  it." 

Why  she  obeyed — for  under  the  outrageous  circum- 
stances it  was  monstrous  to  obey — Mrs.  Malcolm  never 
could  explain,  but  with  Ruby's  hand  in  one  of  hers, 
with  the  other  she  carried  the  basket  of  her  cherished 
blossoms  to  the  flap  in  the  fence,  and  even  lifted  this 
and  passed  the  basket  safely  to  the  other  side. 

"F'owers  fur  mammy,"  Ruby  chuckled,  choking 
with  rapture.  "  'Eaps  an'  'caps.  Yoses  an'  daisies. 
Yuby  pick  'em." 

She  lifted  the  flap,  and,  putting  a  flushed  face 
through,  kissed  her  hand. 

"Yuby  turn  adain  some  day — soon,"  she  gurgled 
reassuringly. 

Then  she  dropped  the  flap,  and  Mrs.  Malcolm  heard 
her  puffing  and  panting  as  she  dragged  her  trophy, 
inch  by  inch,  across  the  graveled  walk  of  Poplar 
Villa. 

Mrs.  Malcolm  stood  some  minutes  seething. 

Then  she  muttered,  with  an  air  of  conviction,  "That 


224        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

child  has  no  more  conscience  than — "  she  was  not 
prone  to  speech,  and  simile  failed  her  till  an  object 
which  would  serve  presented  itself — "than  a  bumble- 
bee," she  concluded,  emphatically. 

She  eyed  the  pilfered  bed.  It  was  a  scene  of  shame- 
ful carnage.  Decapitated,  bleeding  stumps  cried  out 
to  heaven  for  vengeance.  The  neat  earth  was  tram- 
pled. A  few  heavy-belled  blooms  hung  snapped  on 
their  stalks. 

"And  the  De  Lisles  are  coming  to  lunch,"  Mrs.  Mal- 
colm muttered  in  her  full  throat.  She  spread  her 
plump  hands  with  an  accession  of  dignity.  The  De 
Lisles  were — the  De  Lisles;  but  Mrs.  Malcolm  was 
Mrs.  Malcolm.  Then  she  stalked  toward  the  house. 
As  she  went  she  looked  back.  The  flap  in  the  fence 
hung  straight ;  the  trail  of  a  little  footstep  grayed  the 
grass ;  the  cling  of  a  small,  hot  hand  pressed  hers ;  a 
child's  exultant  gurgle  echoed.  But  the  garden 
seemed  emptier  than  she  had  ever  known  it.  Her 
plump,  complacent  face  lost  some  of  its  color;  the 
blood  in  her  heart  stirred.  As  she  stood,  the  sun 
pricked  the  points  of  the  barbed  wire-fencing. 

"F'owers  fur  mammy,"  a  small  voice  said. 

Mrs.  Malcolm  was  a  person  of  an  admirably  balanced 
mind,  however.  She  walked  into  the  dining-room 
and  rang  the  bell. 

"When  Snagg  comes  in  the  morning, ' '  she  instructed 
the  parlor-maid,  "I  shall  be  out.  Tell  him  to  look  at 
the  center  hyacinth  bed,  to  strip  off  all  the  barbed  wire 
he  put  up,  and  to  screw  a  bolt  on  to  a  flap  he  will  find 
in  the  fence. ' ' 

An  hour  later  she  opened  a  letter  of  meek  apology, 
which  arrived  from  Mrs.  Barling  with  a  basket  of  hya- 
cinths. 

She  returned  the  hyacinths  with  compliments,  and  a 
stiff  request  that  the  child  should  not  be  punished. 

Two  mornings  later  she  passed  the  now  replenished 
hyacinth  bed  with  a  sniff  of  indignation.  She  bent 
before  the  fence,  and  finding  the  bolt  unfastened, 
slipped  it  with  a  determined  hand. 

In  the  afternoon  she  unbolted  it  casually,  and  stalked 


"F'OWERS  FUR  MAMMY."  225 

to  a  bench  at  the  further  end  of  the  garden,  where  she 
sat  reading.  Two  hours  later  she  seemed  indignantly 
surprised  to  find  the  flap  unfastened.  She  bolted  it 
resolutely. 

The  following  morning  she  unbolted  it  and  sat  sew- 
ing. She  bolted  it  before  going  in  to  lunch,  and 
unbolted  it  on  coming  out. 

Once  she  heard  voices  behind  the  fence,  and,  with 
precipitate  haste,  secured  the  flap.  When  the  voices 
had  gone  she  unbolted  it  in  the  hope  that  they  would 
return. 

Another  time  she  dropped  a  knot  of  roses  in  the 
garden  of  the  Poplars.  Again,  when  she  should  have 
been  at  her  dressmaker's  for  a  third  fitting  of  a  din- 
ner-gown, she  was  snipping  dead  leaves  in  the  garden, 
with  the  bolt  undrawn,  and  a  box  of  chocolates  upon 
the  iron  table. 

Her  flowers  blossomed,  withered,  and  died. 

"  F'owers  fur  mammy,"  a  small  voice  gurgled; 
"yed  an'  boo.  'Eaps  an'  'eaps!" 

But  they  blossomed  and  died,  and,  for  lack  of  any- 
thing better  to  do,  she  ate  the  chocolates  herself. 

She  bought  another  and  a  larger  box,  her  haste  to 
do  so  and  reach  home  again  early  resulting  in  her 
shirking  a  disgraceful  crease  in  the  bodice  of  a  four- 
times  fitted  gown.  It  would  do,  she  said — for  the  first 
time  within  the  memory  of  Madame  Aiguille. 

She  bought  a  doll  one  day,  a  picture-book  another, 
and,  placing  a  chair  close  up  to  the  flap,  sat  down  with 
these  on  her  lap.  She  started  for  her  walk  at  the  same 
moment  that  the  Barling  children  issued  from  their 
gate.  But  Ruby  did  not  recognize  her  in  her 
bonnet. 

At  the  end  of  a  fortnight  she  sat  down  and  penned 
a  letter  to  her  neighbor.  She  begged  to  be  excused 
for  not  calling,  finding  her  health  unequal  to  the  strain 
of  society.  She  hoped  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  would  not 
suppose  she  had  been  in  the  least  annoyed  at  the  little 
girl's  trespass  on  her  garden.  If  Mrs.  Kew-Barling 
would  permit  it,  she  should  be  glad  to  have  the  little 
boy  and  girl  to  tea  with  her  next  Wednesday  at  four. 

15 


226        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

Her  large  hands  trembled  as  she  opened  Mrs.  Barl- 
ing's answer. 

A  frown  of  displeasure  crossed  her  face. 

"Shy,  indeed!"  she  snorted.  "That  is  the  very 
last  virtue  the  Barling  children  suffer  from.  It  is 
certainly  not  shyness.  But  she  need  not  think  I  shall 
call." 

She  took  up  her  knitting,  and  knitted,  with  less 
placidity  than  usual,  at  a  comforter.  She  also  was 
pledged  to  a  Sunshine  League  to  the  extent  of  four 
garments  yearly. 

She  laid  it  down  with  a  sudden  fit  of  panting.  The 
woollen  softness  had  slipped  over  the  back  of  her  hand 
with  something  of  the  feel  of  a  child's  gold  hair. 
Under  her  fingers  a  warm  little  back  jerked  restive  as 
it  had  done  while  she  tied  the  pinafore.  About  them 
a  warm  clutch  clung  confidingly. 

Her  smooth,  complacent  face  broke  into  creases. 
She  stretched  her  plump,  complacent  hands  out : 

"My  God!"  she  cried,  astonishing  herself  by  the 
energy  of  the  invocation.  "My  God!  what  I  have 
missed!" 

As  the  face  of  a  pool  closes  over  a  pebble  tossed  into 
it,  so  a  human  face  resumes  its  surface  over  an  emo- 
tion ;  but  the  pebble  and  the  emotion  will  ever  after- 
ward have  been. 

Mrs.  Malcolm  took  up  her  knitting  again,  resuming 
her  "Sunshine"  pledge  and  her  normal  countenance. 

"No,"  she  muttered,  though  a  little  brokenly,  "she 
need  not  suppose  I  have  the  remotest  intention  of 
calling. ' ' 


THE  CULT  OF  SMARTNESS,  227 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 
THE  CULT  OF  SMARTNESS. 

The  houses  of  the  rich  are  confectioner's  shops,  where  we  get 
sweetmeats  and  wine.  The  houses  of  the  poor  are  imitations  of 
these  to  the  extent  of  their  ability. 

By  what  chain  of  circumstances  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox 
had  been  constituted,  or  had  constituted  herself  leader 
of  Winkworth  society,  neither  I  nor  Winkworth  am  in 
a  position  to  state. 

As  I  have  said,  she  was  not  handsome,  she  was  not 
clever,  and  certainly  she  was  not  amiable.  Neither 
was  she  the  wealthiest  woman  in  the  neighborhood; 
yet  she  ruled  Winkworth  as  with  a  rod  of  nickel-plated 
iron.  Thinking-  it  over,  I  have  been  moved  to  con- 
clude that  her  sway  was  by  reason  of  her  limitations. 
She  never  overflowed,  and  therefore  expended  her 
forces  neither  needlessly  nor  injudiciously.  She  never 
said  too  much,  smiled  too  much,  read  too  much,  thought 
too  much,  allowed  too  much,  denied  too  much — did 
anything  too  much.  This  gave  her  an  appearance 
of  discretion  and  restrained  power  altogether  admira- 
ble in  a  state  of  society  which  has  sublimed  itself  into 
an  attenuation  of  refinement  out  of  the  gross  elements 
of  mere  prodigal  Nature. 

When  she  recognized  you  in  the  street,  her  bow 
asserted  beyond  question  her  indisputable  right  of 
sway;  the  limitations  of  her  smile  translated  them- 
selves in  the  mind  of  the  smiled-upon  as  the  measure 
of  his  personal  shortcomings.  The  very  scant  number 
of  teeth  she  revealed  to  you  gave  you  the  impression, 
in  conjunction  with  her  bearing  and  prestige,  that  you 
were,  after  all,  but  a  sorry  fellow — a  reflection  which 
took  you  with  a  bound  to  the  conclusion  that  she  was 
proportionally  greater.  Whereas,  if  the  truth  had 
been  known,  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  smiled  only  small 
smiles,  for  no  better  reason  than  that  this  was  one 


228        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

among  her  limitations.  But  human  nature  has  always 
shown  a  tendency  to  afflict  itself  with  tyrants  and 
scourges,  so  Winkworth,  like  all  other  Winkworths, 
smarted  beneath  a  yoke. 

The  rasp  of  a  hair-shirt  never  stung  the  aspiring 
saint  with  keener  joy  than  did  the  gall  of  the  corset 
whereby  the  Winkworth  matron  approximated  her 
girth  to  the  attenuation  of  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox.  Nor 
did  the  subtle  pleasure  of  his  morning  flagellation  lift 
him  into  higher  heights  of  ecstasy  than  stirred  the 
Winkworth  maiden  on  seeing  her  pretty  face  spoiled 
by  a  hat  the  counterpart  of  that  worn  the  previous 
Sunday  by  Miss  Askew-Hickox.  As  the  comfort  of 
the  flagellator  lay  in  the  reflection  that  that  his  body 
lost  in  comfort  his  soul  acquired  of  immortal  salvation, 
so  the  balm  of  Miss  Hickox's  disciple  lay  in  the  belief 
that  that  she  lost  in  comeliness  she  gained  in  "style," 
even  though  it  were  not  her  own,  but  the  style  of  Miss 
Gwendolen  Askew-Hickox. 

Possibly  nobody  was  more  astonished  than  was  Mrs. 
Askew  herself  when,  by  common  feminine  consensus, 
she  found  herself  chosen  the  leader  of  Winkworth 's 
social  evolution.  One  of  her  limitations,  however, 
being  her  absolute  unconsciousness  of  them,  she 
straightway  accepted  the  situation,  and,  without  any 
of  the  diffidence  which  might  have  robbed  a  stronger 
nature  of  the  guise  of  strength,  stepped  up  to  her 
throne  and  took  into  her  narrow  hands  the  sceptre 
offered.  The  determining  cause  of  her  selection  had 
been  the  fact  that,  shortly  after  Mr.  Askew-Hickox 
had  achieved  a  boom  in  South  African  stock,  the  name 
of  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  appeared  in  the  list  of  ladies 
presented  at  the  drawing-room — a  drawing-room  dis- 
tinguished by  the  presence  of  Her  Gracious  Majest)' 
herself.  The  ladies  of  Winkworth  proper  did  not  them- 
selves aspire  to  such  distinction,  and  the  shrewd 
among  them  characterized  Mrs.  Hickox's  departure  as 
a  ridiculous  proceeding,  seeing  that  she  had  no  rela- 
tion with  the  court,  nor  pretension  to  be  of  its  ten 
thousand.  But  though  one  or  two  condemned,  the 
prestige  attaching  to  the  proceeding  was  recognized 


THE  CULT  OF  SMARTNESS.  229 

by  one  and  all,  more  especially  after  a  well-known 
society  journal  had  published  a  portrait  of  the  dtbu- 
tante  in  court  attire,  with  at  least  three  inches  of  a 
column  of  type  devoted  to  her  gown. 

It  was  common  enough  to  read  the  names  of  county 
women  in  the  list  of  presentations,  but  these  ladies  did 
not  associate  with  the  ladies  of  Winkworth  proper, 
having  "places" — prosperous  or  tumble-down,  accord- 
ing as  they  derived  or  derived  not  their  income  from 
landed  estate — on  the  outskirts. 

Prior  to  the  advent  of  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox,  Wink- 
worth  had  never  aspired  to  being  smart.  Indeed,  it 
had  tended  somewhat  toward  that  which  she  stigma- 
tized as  "Philistinism,"  having  retained  the  simple 
manners  of  a  country  town  years  subsequent  to  its 
having  evolved  itself  into  a  suburban. 

Thenceforward,  however,  there  was  no  more  loung- 
ing for  men,  tired  out  by  a  day's  stiff  skirmishing  with 
manglers.  If  they  did  not  as  Askew-Hickox  did  (under 
order  of  the  leader  of  society)  get  into  their  dress  suits 
for  dinner,  the  consciousness  that  he  did  so,  and  that 
Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  would,  in  her  exalted  conscious- 
ness, take  it  for  granted  that  they  also  did,  gave  them 
just  the  salutary  prick  of  conscience,  which  marred 
the  savor  of  their  dinner,  but  was  the  spur  of  social 
regeneration.  Thenceforward,  mothers  ceased  from 
walking  hand  in  hand  beside  their  little  ones  through 
country  lanes  and  daisy-studded  meadows,  returning 
with  nosegays  of  poppies  and  woodbine  and  wild  rose 
in  their  ungloved  hands,  songs  and  laughter  on  their 
lips,  and  flower-chains  about  the  children's  necks. 
There  were  no  more  picnics  in  the  woods,  the  little 
ones  carrying  their  milk  and  cake  in  wicker  baskets, 
after  that  day  when  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  demonstrated 
that  a  picnic  requires  drags  and  footmen,  pdtd  de  fois 
gras  and  champagne,  to  rescue  it  from  the  sphere  of 
the  homely  and  natural  and  vulgar. 

There  were  no  more  children's  parties,  muslin- 
frocked  and  cotton-gloved,  where  the  wine  was  home- 
made gooseberry;  the  viands  chicken,  cold  plum- 
puddings,  and  mince-pies;  the  fruit  piled  dishes  of 


230        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

orange-halves.  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  banished  these. 
Winkworth  had  no  mind  to  let  the  little  Hickox  go 
home  and  turn  up  small  contemptuous  noses  in  derision 
of  home-baked  mince-pies,  small  gooseberry,  and 
romping  games.  If  the  Askew-Hickox  supplied  cham- 
pagne at  children's  parties;  provided  an  improved 
and  superior  Punch  and  Judy  show,  or  a  three  or  four 
guinea  conjuror  to  amuse  them;  danced  cotillions, 
wore  kid  gloves  and  accordion-pleated  silken  frocks 
with  flouncings  of  real  lace,  then  Winkworth  must  look 
to  its  laurels.  For  Winkworth  children,  having  been 
initiated  into  the  delights  of  sweet  champagne, 
despised  the  friendly  gooseberry  under  any  other 
name,  as  having  been  introduced  to  the  modishness  of 
kid  gloves,  they  snickered  in  corners  when  the  little 
Mylnes,  who  had  not  before  been  bidden  to  the 
Hickox 's,  came  joyous  in  their  muslin  frocks  and  cotton 
mittens,  and  wept  all  the  way  home  because  nobody 
would  dance  with  them. 

Winkworth  had  money  before  the  arrival  of  Mrs. 
Askew-Hickox,  but  before  that  epoch  Winkworth 
spent  its  money  as  it  chose.  Now  it  spent  it  as  Mrs. 
Askew-Hickox  chose.  In  return  for  which  she  taught 
it  to  be  smart. 

One  must  suffer  to  be  smart,  and  Winkworth  suffered, 
especially  that  section  of  Winkworth  which  had  not 
means  enough  to  be  smart  at  any  cost  of  suffering. 

The  younger  Askew-Hickox  were  an  interesting 
study  in  psychology.  Given  a  woman  of  the  type  of 
Mrs.  Askew — a  purely  artificial  graft  upon  the  human 
stem;  a  being  of  conventions,  imitations,  limitations, 
and  second-hand  opinions;  a  thing  of  corsets,  mantles, 
modes  and  paddings,  stock  phrases  and  clipped  speech, 
one  stands  half-fearful  of  her  before  the  natural  facts 
of  marriage  and  motherhood!  How  much  of  char- 
latanism and  departure  from  her  ways  will  Nature 
tolerate  before  she  sets  the  seal  of  childlessness  upon 
a  race  which  has  nothing  left  she  cares  to  reproduce? 
When  the  modes  and  corsets  of  this  artificiality  are 
doffed,  will  her  bridegroom  find  her  a  woman,  flesh  of 
the  flesh  of  that  first  woman,  who  yielded  herself  in 


THE  CULT  OF  SMARTNESS.  231 

sylvan  forests,  soft-eyed,  trembling,  and  afraid  in  the 
presence  of  a  mystery  greater  than  they  two ;  pure  in 
the  stress  and  simplicity  of  a  passion  to  which  Nature 
has  set  the  strain  of  sacrifice;  tender  and  proud  that 
her  mate's  is  the  mastery? 

Heavens!  what  emotions  will  her  cramped,  wasp- 
waisted  soul  bring  to  the  fulfillment  of  a  great  eternal 
mystery?  Nothing!  one  fears,  beyond  distorted  sensi- 
bilities, immature  intelligences,  sensations  perverted 
for  the  lack  of  health.  The  sweetest  flowers  decayed 
are  rankest,  the  highest  potentialities  are  pervertable 
to  the  basest  uses;  so  the  loveliest  feelings  may 
degenerate  to  the  most  ignoble. 

Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  braed  her  abortive  breasts  to 
the  gaslight  of  evening  festivities,  but  she  withheld 
them  from  the  morning  light  and  seeking  lips  of  her 
poor  babes.  Yet  Nature  had  her  hour  of  triumph. 
Turn  out  of  your  narrow,  conventional  soul,  quoth  she, 
the  pruderies,  the  wretched  missishness  and  false  con- 
ceptions which  are  the  weeds  which  choke  my  ways ; 
turn  them  out  once  and  for  all,  and  in  the  abysm  of  a 
woman's  travail,  learn  that  my  rootings  stand  not  in 
such  rubble  but  in  naked  human  flesh,  and  in  the  pulse 
of  human  blood,  pumped  with  the  heavy  faithfulness 
of  human  hearts.  Right  to  the  innermost  core  of  you 
my  roots  strike  deep  that  my  sap  may  rise  strong  to 
my  topmost  branches.  They  are  fed  by  human  lives, 
they  are  watered  by  human  tears,  my  flowers  are  the 
blush  of  human  joys,  and  you  who,  under  the  social 
convention  of  marriage,  invoke  me  unwitting,  shall 
feel  for  a  space  the  rend  of  my  strong  hand. 

But  when  large-eyed  pain  (attended  by  the  chloro- 
formist)  had  released  her,  the  soul  of  Mrs.  Askew- 
Hickox  shrank  once  more  to  the  measure  of  its  limita- 
tions, and  she  remembered  despitefully  the  shame  and 
anguish  put  upon  her,  and  set  her  neat  lips  prudishly 
against  the  indelicacies  lying  at  the  heart  of  life. 

"At  all  events,  I  am  not  going  to  be  a  cow,"  she 
said,  "and  spoil  my  figure  nursing  babies."  So  she 
sent  for  feeding-bottles  and  tinned  milk. 

To     the     short-sighted    eyes    of  a  merely    human 


232        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

on-looker,  it  would  appear  to  have  been  a  grievous  error 
on  the  part  of  Nature  not  to  have  subtracted  mother- 
hood from  the  sum  of  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox's  limita- 
tions. For  most  assuredly  the  world  gained  nothing 
by  her  maternal  contributions  to  it,  and,  so  far  as  the 
merely  human  one  could  observe,  she  herself  was  none 
the  better,  nor  wiser,  nor  kindlier,  nor  any  of  the 
other  gentle  adjectives  hovering  like  angel  cherubs 
round  the  bed  of  motherhood. 

Of  her  four  children,  the  sons  were  delicate  and 
womanish,  the  daughters  mannish — true  types  of 
up-to-date  degeneracy.  The  elder  son  was  a  profligate, 
his  incapability  of  a  whole  robust  emotion  revenging 
itself  upon  him  by  an  insatiable  appetite  for  small 
ones.  The  younger  son  was  a  miser  and  a  woman- 
hater — a  miser  because  he  lacked  impulses  for  spend- 
ing money,  and  a  woman-hater  because  his'  shrewd  eyes 
deduced  from  other  men's  experiences  that  woman 
was  capable  of  proving  such  an  impulse.  Both 
daughters  were  of  the  gender  neuter,  that  is  to  say, 
their  feminine  frames  were  manned  by  masculine 
abilities.  One,  the  nerve  forces  necessary  to  her  com- 
pletion as  a  woman  failing  suddenly,  stopped  short  in 
her  processes  of  development  at  seventeen,  with  the 
result  that  she  withdrew  into  a  corner  of  her  brain, 
and,  taking  to  spectacles,  devoted  herself  to  logarithms. 
The  other,  a  big  handsome  girl  of  the  type  I  have 
heard  somewhat  aptly  described  as  a  "steel  gazelle," 
vindicated  her  mother's  suffering  and  mortifications 
in  her  production  by  personifying  that  excellence  of 
smartness  which  was  her  mother's  acme  of  human 
attainment.  She  rode,  she  danced,  she  cycled,  she 
sang,  she  spoke  languages,  she  played  tennis  and 
hockey.  She  knew  no  virtues  such  as  diffidence  or 
self-cession.  She  was  all  assertiveness  and  sound. 
She  glittered  with  accomplishments  for  the  reason 
that  she  possessed  no  faculty  which  did  not  show  upon 
the  surface.  She  was  like  a  girl  in  armor.  I  have 
sometimes  wondered,  watching  her,  where,  on  all  that 
restless,  bristling  surface,  a  little  child  might  lay  its 


THE  CULT  OF  SMARTNESS.  233 

head,  or  a  man,  wearied  and  dusty  with  the  trudge 
of  life,  find  rest. 

"She  will  make  a  good  match,"  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox, 
observing  her,  murmured,  and,  so  observing,  set  about 
devising  schemes  for  penetrating  the  selecter  circles  of 
the  county.  For  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  Mrs. 
Askew-Hickox  had  any  intention  of  marrying  Gwen- 
dolen to  some  young  Winkworth  aspirant.  By  no 
means.  She  had  climbed  the  social  ladder  of  the  town, 
now  but  a  leap  stood  between  her  and  the  county. 
That  leap  it  devolved  upon  Gwendolen  to  make. 

But  all  things  have  a  level,  and  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox, 
though  her  aspirations  rose  with  her  altitude,  had 
found  hers.  She  found  it  vastly  more  difficult  and 
thickset  with  mortifications  and  chagrins  to  enter  the 
circle  of  county  selectness  than  Winkworth  proper 
found  it  difficult  to  enter  hers. 

But  one  of  her  limitations  was  an  inability  to  take  a 
snub.  It  is  a  limitation,  perhaps  the  most  valuable  of 
all  limitations  toward  social  success,  and  she  wielded 
it  gracefully,  aided  by  Parisian  bonnets  and  her  small 
smile.  Gwendolen  at  Easter  had  assisted  Lady  Ashley 
to  decorate  the  font  of  St.  Mark's,  and  Lady  Ashley 
had  inquired  if  she  were  fond  of  skating,  as  though 
she  had  it  in  her  mind  to  invite  her  to  join  the  skating 
parties  for  which  the  Park  was  famous. 

Lady  Ashley,  an  indolent,  shabby  woman,  with  no 
pretentious  to  smartness,  though  a  gentlewoman  to 
the  core,  had  even  admired  Miss  Gwendolen's  neat 
coat  and  skirt,  and  begged  for  the  name  of  her  tailor. 
And  Lady  Ashley  was  a  widow,  whose  son  had  already 
succeeded  to  the  title. 

But  the  son  was  in  the  toils  of  a  woman  who  had 
served  Mrs.  Hickox  for  model  in  the  art  of  smartness, 
a  woman  somewhat  the  vogue  just  then  among  the 
county  folk — a  lady  who  added  to  her  limitations  one 
which  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox 's  set,  being  still  only  half- 
hearted in  its  smartness  and  strict  as  regarded  the 
conduct  of  its  matrons,  would  never  have  tolerated. 

So,  till  that  time  when  the  prodigal  should  range 
himself,  Mrs.  Askew  did  not  suffer  the  grass  to  grow 


234        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

beneath  the  neat-shod  feet  of  Gwendolen  standing  in 
the  market-place. 


"Now,  what  the  deuce  is  he  driving  at?"  Harold 
H-ickox  yawned,  throwing  a  letter  on  the  handsomely- 
appointed  breakfast-table,  whither  he  gathered — as 
usual — late. 

"Who  is  he?"  inquired  Gwendolen,  with  an  ear  for 
this  particular  pronoun. 

"Vaux — man  I  met  up  in  Leicestershire." 

"Lord  Crossley's  son?"  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  ques- 
tioned from  her  chair  at  the  writing-desk. 

"That  you,  mater?  Morning !  Didn't  see  you  before. 
Awf'ly  late.  Kept  at  the  office  last  night.  Beastly 
bore — business,"  Harold  muttered,  guiltily. 

Mater  ignored  the  apology.  She  was  not  a  difficult 
person  to  live  with.  She  entertained  no  impossible 
standards  of  masculine  conduct.  So  long  as  her  men- 
kind  were  smart  in  their  speech  and  ways,  she  did  not 
quarrel  with  their  morals.  Fastness  was  no  breach  of 
manners.  She  was  rather  proud  of  Harold's  looks, 
though  she  suspected  him  of  being  too  handsome  to 
be  quite  the  best  form.  He  was  good-looking  enough 
to  have  been  mistaken  for  an  actor. 

"Is  it  Lord  Crossley's  son?"  she  inquired  again. 

Harold  nodded.    "Fellow  I  met  at  the  Warburton's. " 

"What  does  he  say?" 

"Give  her  the   letter,  Gwen,  while   I   behead  this 

egg-" 

"Ask  him  for  next  week.    He  seems  to  wish  to  come 

soon,"  Mrs.  Hickox  said  pleasantly,  laying  down  the 
letter. 

"Oh,  but  we're  going  to  Surrey  next  week,  mother, 
if  you  remember,"  Gwen  submitted. 

"I  have  changed  my  mind,"  Mrs.  Hickox  said 
composedly,  "we  will  go  later.  Give  Harold  the 
writing-case,  dear." 

"Oh,  I  say!  Write  to-night.  Horribly  hipped — 
home  so  late,"  Harold  demurred. 

"Don't    give    him    that   vulgar  monogram   paper. 


THE  CULT  OF  SMARTNESS.  235 

There  is  some  emblazoned  crested  paper  in  the  drawer 
and  the  new  Court  envelopes,  Gwendolen. ' ' 

'  'Well,  if  I  must,  I  suppose  I  must,  even  if  I  go  with- 
out my  breakfast,"  Harold  grumbled.  "Now  then 
what  shall  I  say?  I  haven't  any  brain  on  to-day. 
Beastly  champagne  there  is  going. ' ' 

"What,  at  the  office?"  Gwendolen  inquired,  sarcas- 
tically. 

The  letter  having  been  dictated,  sealed,  and  stamped, 
Gwen  rang  the  bell. 

"Put  the  letter  in  the  rack,"  her  mother  instructed, 
"it  can  be  posted  to-morrow.  There  is  no  need  to 
answer  by  return  of  post. ' ' 

"He  may  accept  another  invitation,  mother," 
Daughter  urged,  breathlessly. 

But  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox's  rule  of  conduct  was  never 
swayed  by  impulse,  nor  by  merely  suppositious 
situations. 

"It  is  unlikely,"  she  said  calmly,  "and  it  is  a  good 
rule  never  to  appear  eager.  Is  your  green  frock  still 
decent?" 

"It  would  have  done  for  the  Hoskins',"  Gwen 
affirmed,  expressively. 

"As  bad  as  that,"  her  mother  commented,  with  no 
intention  of  humor.  "Write  a  line  to  Marchand,  and 
tell  her  to  let  you  have  the  rose-pink  I  ordered  for  the 
first  without  fail  by  Saturday.  Or,  stay — you  had 
better  send  a  telegram." 

"It's  a  beastly  bore  having  him  next  week,"  Harold 
grumbled.  "He's  no  end  of  a  fellow  to  entertain. 
Seen  everything,  stops  at  the  best  houses,  gets  liverish 
in  the  mornings,  thinks  himself  no  end  of  a  swell. 
And  I  was  going  up  the  river — all  arranged." 

"Gwen  will  take  him  off  your  hands,"  Mrs.  Askew- 
Hickox  stated  comfortingly,  though  she  knew  her 
flesh  and  blood  too  well  to  suspect  it  of  requiring  com- 
fort in  a  matter  which  concerned  the  son  of  a  peer. 


"If  that  chap  goes  on  apin'  me,"  Vaux  observed, 
disgustedly,  as  he  climbed  the  handsome  staircase  of 


236  WOMAN  AND  TH  E  SHADOW. 

the  Grange  a  week  later,  "I  shall  knock  him  over  the 
head.  When  a  chap's  family  has  been  as  long  on  its 
legs  as  ours  he's  got  a  right  to  be  bored  and  that ;  but 
it's  sickenin'  for  a  chap  like  Hickox,  whose  grand- 
father was  skippin'  round  a  shop  or  turnin'  a  hand- 
organ.  And  why  don't  he  brush  his  eyebrows  back- 
ward, or  bandoline  his  curls  down?  He  looks  like  a 
chap  in  a  picture." 

He  reclimbed  the  stairs  later  more  wearily  still. 

"I  say,"  he  said,  addressing  himself  in  the  glass,  "if 
you  ain't  goin'  through  fire  and  water,  for  the  sake  of 
love  and  that,  I'll  eat  my  hat.  Pink  girl's  pretty,  and 
missis  ain't  bad;  but,  by  Jove,  where  have  they  been 
growin'?  Didn't  know  the  Windermeres  were  Dover- 
courts,  or  that  the  Duke  of  Windsor  had  eloped  with 
that  Frenchwoman  all  London's  talkin'  of.  It's  the 
rummest  thing  how  these  people  find  anythin'  to  talk 
about  when  they  don't  seem  to  know  anythin'  that's 
goin'  on.  Grand  scheme  o'  mine  to  get  on  terriers, — 
that  chap  Hickox  goes  in  for  bein'  sporty,  and  fancies 
he  knows  a  terrier  from  a  Dachs.  I  shall  turn  that  tap 
on  again.  When  you're  talkin'  to  chaps  who  don't 
know  anythin'  about  anythin',  it's  a  grand  scheme  to 
put  'em  on  to  somethin'  they  think  they  know  some- 
thin'  about.  And  they  don't  even  know  Milly  Rivers' 
address,  or  who  she's  stoppin'  with.  And  I  shall  have 
to  take  the  old  lady  in  to  dinner  every  evenin'  for  a 
week,  and  tell  her  old  Lady  Buxton  wears  a  wig,  and 
the  Duke  of  Hertfordshire  stutters,  and  Rugby's  wife 
was  somebody  else's — things  everybody  knew  before 
he  was  born — and  all  without  gettin'  any  reward  for 
my  pains.  I  say,  even  little  Milly  would  have  to  admit 
there's  some  chivalry  and  that  left  in  the  world.  Ker- 
shaw  ought  to  put  me  up  in  rhyme." 

When  the  seventh  day  came,  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox 
gently  insisted  on  it  that  her  guest  should  accompany 
her  to  church.  Harold  had  reported  Vaux  as  doffing 
hat  and  showing  on  terms  with  sundry  of  the  county 
folks,  and  the  opportunity  of  displaying  him  in  the 
Hickox  pew  was  not  to  be  missed. 

Mrs.  Hickox  was  in  good  spirits.     The  men  of  her 


THE  CULT  OF  SMARTNESS.  237 

guest's  class  are  more  empress?  in  their  manner  to 
women  than  were  they  of  Winkworth,  and  Gwendolen 
was  looking  her  best.  So  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  took 
courage  to  insist  gently. 

''There,  now,  I  am  sure  you  enjoyed  it,  Mr.  Vaux," 
she  remarked,  shaking  a  well-gloved  finger  at  him  as 
they  issued  from  the  porch. 

He  had  certainly  a  pleased  air,  his  eyes  sparkled, 
his  langour  had  vanished,  and  he  glanced  about  him 
with  unwonted  interest. 

"Rippin'  good  sermon,"  he  said,  his  eyes  still 
searching;  "awfully  charmin'  of  you  to  take  me. 
Rattlin'  good  time.  Forgot  church  could  be  so — 
Hello!  she's  vanished. " 

"Oh,  no,  she  is  on  in  front,  talkin'  to  the  lady  in  the 
green  dress — Lady  Ashley,  you  know. ' ' 

"Haven't  met  her  since  I  was  a  small  chap.  Gave 
me  too  many  mince-pies,  I  remember.  No,  I  won't 
speak  to  her  just  now,  thanks." 

"Do  you  know  the  girl  who  sat  in  the  pew  by  the 
pulpit  facin'  us?"  he  questioned  Harold  later  in  the 
smoke-room,  "the  girl  with  a  nice  lookin'  woman  in 
gray  and  two  rippin' -lookin'  little  kids?" 

Harold  turned  his  arched  brows  and  handsome  eyes 
upon  him  with  a  sly  air. 

"Rippin',  isn't  she?"  he  said,  with  so  mimetic  an 
excellence  that  Vaux  might  have  fancied  he  himself 
had  said  it. 

He  looked  annoyed,  whether  at  this  annexation  of 
his  pet  expression,  or  whether  at  its  application,  I 
cannot  say. 

"She  is  a  lady  I  have  met,"  he  said,  dryly. 

Harold  shook  his  head. 

"You're  mistaking  her  for  someone  else,"  he  said. 
"You  might  easily — she's  got  an  air.  But  she's  only 
a  governess.  I'm  on  her  track  myself,  so  I  know." 

"We're  talkin'  of  different  girls,"  Vaux  maintained ; 
"I  mean  the  girl  in  mournin',  with  big  feathers  in  her 
hat  and  a  red  hymn-book — sittin'  between  two  pretty 
kids  just  under  the  pulpit." 

"Kids   in  white — I  know  what   I'm  talking  about. 


238         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

Fine  figure,  loose  curls  on  her  forehead.  Looks  you 
straight  in  the  face — splendid  color  and  teeth." 

"Well,  she  hadn't  any  particular  color  this  morning, ' ' 
Vaux  returned;  "but  you  needn't  think  she's  a  govern- 
ess. You've  got  the  wrong  end  of  the  story,  old  man. 
She  lived  near  us  some  time.  I've  hunted  with  her 
heaps  o'  times.  And  she  has  a  cool  hundred  thou." 

Harold  glanced  at  him  intelligently.  The  mystery 
was  solved.  Vaux's  eagerness  to  renew  his  acquaint- 
ance had  explained  itself  Well,  he  had  never  sup- 
posed it  to  have  its  origin  in  personal  affection. 

"I  say,"  he  said,  getting  up  and  facing  Vaux,  "you'll 
be  able  to  introduce  me,  you  know." 

Vaux,  lounging  on  a  magnificent  divan  in  the 
Turkish  smoking-room,  let  his  eyes  travel  slowly  over 
the  man  before  him,  climbing  his  five  feet  six  till  his 
gaze  reached  the  level  of  his  handsome  orbs. 

"I  shall  be  able  to — ?"  he  said.  "Why,  of  course,  if 
you-  want  me  to. ' ' 

Stalking  the  High  Street  next  morning  in  company 
with  Hickox,  Vaux  came  face  to  face  with  Millicent 
pushing  the  mail-cart,  a  golden-haired  cherub  cur- 
veting beside  her,  a  boy  in  a  sailor-suit  clinging  to  her 
arm,  and  preceding  them  a  big,  black,  mongrel  bull- 
dog. 

Shame,  surprise,  and  mortification  flushed  her  face. 
In  her  embarrassment  she  hesitated,  as  though  uncer- 
tain what  to  do.  But  Vaux  decided  for  her.  In  the 
moment  his  eyes  rested  on  her  he  averted  them. 
There  were  in  his  look,  recognition,  deference  to  her 
wish  for  concealment,  deprecation  of  any  curiosity  on 
his  part  to  discover  that  she  wished  to  conceal,  and  he 
passed  her  without  a  sign. 

Hickox,  reading  recognition  in  her  face  as  from  an 
open  book,  already  had  his  fingers  at  his  hat-brim  for 
raising  simultaneously  with  that  of  his  companion. 

"What  the  deuce — ?"  he  blurted,  letting  his  hand 
drop. 

"Oh — ah,"  Vaux  drawled,  nonchalantly;  "you  were 
right  and  I  was  wrong.  It  isn't  the  same  girl.  Deucedly 
like  her,  though,  till  you  get  close  up. ' ' 


THE  CULT  OF  SMARTNESS.  239 

It  was  well  done,  and  even  Harold  would  have  been 
deceived  had  not  the  girl's  face  betrayed  her.  He 
thrust  forward,  so  that  his  companion  could  not  fail  to 
notice  it,  a  profile  whereon  an  eloquent  smile  of 
incredulity  played.  Vaux  should  see  he  wasn't  any 
sort  of  a  country  bumpkin. 

"Beastly  cad  of  a  chap,"  reflected  Vaux;  "hasn't 
the  manners  even  to  pretend  to  believe  a  chap  when  a 
chap  expects  him  to." 

Two  hours  later  he  had  taken  leave  of  the  Askew- 
Hickox. 

"You've  given  me  no  end  of  a  time,  Mrs.  Askew- 
Hickox,"  he  said;  "fairly  rippin'.  Seems  as  if  I  only 
got  here  yesterday.  You're  awfully  good — no,  thank 
you;  I  should  be  charmed,  but  I've  got  to  get  on  to 
Lady  Ashley's.  Some  other  time,  if  you'll  have  me. 
Hickox  is  comin'  to  us,  you  know,  for  some  shootin' 
and  we'll  talk  it  over  then.  Good-by,  Miss  Gwen- 
dolen. Monstrous  cruel  of  you  to  give  me  such  a 
dustin'  down  last  night  at  billiards.  Send  you  those 
gloves  next  week.  Six-and-a-half,  eight  buttons, 
preferabty  light  colors ;  I  remember,  you  see ;  written 
on  my  heart.  Good-by;  thanks  awfully.  Send  you 
those  flowers  for  the  dance.  Ta-ta,  Hickox.  Respects 
to  the  guv'nor.  See  you  the  thirteenth." 

He  drove  to  Lady  Ashley's. 

"I  say,"  he  addressed  that  astonished  lady,  "I 
thought  I'd  look  you  up,  you  know.  I've  just  got  over 
that  attack  of  mince-pies.  If  you  could  put  me  up  for 
the  night,  I'd  be  glad  to  see  old  Bert  again." 

"Why,  bless  me,  if  it  isn't  little  Tom  Vaux.  Put 
you  up !  Why,  you're  a  perfect  godsend  in  this  wilder- 
ness. Bertie  was  only  talking  of  you  yesterday.  Your 
good  mother  never  forgave  me  those  mince-pies,  you 
know,"  she  added,  laughing;  "though  I  didn't  force 
you  to  eat  them. ' ' 

"Beastly  young  pig  I  must  have  been.  Wonder  you 
have  the  charity  and  that  to  let  me  inside  the  house. 
Thanks  awfully;  I'd  like  to  stop  a  day  or  two.  How 
bloomin'  you  look;  thought  you  were  your  daughter, 
'pon  my  honor." 


240        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"You  know  perfectly  well  I  have  no  daughter. 
Robbing,  have  Mr.  Vaux's  things  carried  to  the  blue- 
room,  and  bring  tea. ' ' 

"Know  it!  I  should  think  I  did  know  it,  otherwise 
I  shouldn't  be  the  bachelor  I  am." 

"Do  you  think  I  would  let  a  daughter  of  mine  marry 
you,  you  bad  man?"  Lady  Ashley  cried,  laughing;  "I 
have  heard  about  you!" 


THE  EX-HEIRESS.  241 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

THE  EX-HEIRESS. 

• 

"  Ah !  how  good  it  feels — 
The  hand  of  an  old  friend! " 

Millicent  was  sitting  in  the  schoolroom  when  he 
called.  The  sight  of  him  had  brought  back  all  her 
troubles.  Time  and  the  routine  of  duty  and  her  fond- 
ness for  the  children  had  laid  the  groundwork  of  fresh 
rootings ;  but  that  sudden  meeting  had  swept  her  back 
among  old  memories.  Step  by  step  she  had  lived  her 
new  life,  stopping  the  mouths  of  pain  and  loss  with 
industries  and  duties.  The  path  had  been  hard  enough 
indeed — the  path  of  domestic  trial  and  infantile  way- 
wardness— but  she  had  trodden  it  bravely,  and  had 
kept  her  impatiences  and  tempers  well  in  curb.  For  I 
cannot  pretend  that  she  was  superior  to  either. 

The  restraints  of  Poplar  Villa  and  of  the  nursery, 
with  its  obligations  to  talk  down  to  Robby's  aspira- 
tions. Ruby's  prattle,  and  to  satisfy  the  baby's 
insatiable  demands  for  superlatives  descriptive  of 
"porter,"  fretted  her.  And  the  sight  of  Vaux  had 
brought  back  all  she  had  lost. 

If  she  could  but  have  a  day  to  herself,  a  whole  day 
wherein  to  unprison  her  pent  feelings,  and  lay  them 
straight  again  on  her  mind's  shelves;  and  she  had 
begun  to  hope  them  dead.  Poor  girl,  strong  emotions 
die  hard! 

"I  am  afraid  the  children  are  too  much  for  you," 
Mrs.  Barling  said  at  lunch.  "You  have  not  been  look- 
ing at  all  well  lately. ' ' 

' '  Oh,  I  am  well, ' '  she  maintained  as  cheerfully  as 
could  be,  "and  the  children  are  very  good." 

"Young  Mr.  Harold  Hickox  stared  at  her  this  morn- 
ing, as  if — ' '  Robby  paused,  with  his  looks  on  Millicent' s 
face,  '  'as  if  his  eyes  would  drop  out,  mother. ' ' 
16 


242         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

' ' Ascox  eyes  dyop  out,  muvver, ' '  gurgled  Ruby,  out 
of  a  mouthful  of  pudding. 

"He  is  so  handsome,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  said, 
admiringly,  '  'and  looks  such  a  perfect  gentleman. ' ' 

Millicent  mentally  contrasted  him  as  she  had  seen 
him  walking  with  Vaux,  who  had  not  one  pretension  to 
looks,  but  every  claim  to  breeding.  She  made  no 
remark,  however. 

"I  will  take  out  the  elder  children  this  afternoon, 
and  you  shall  have  a  few  hours'  quiet,"  Mrs.  Barling 
said,  considerately. 

So  Millicent  was  sitting  in  the  schoolroom,  with  a 
bundle  of  letters,  and  an  album  of  photographs  before 
her,  when  Parkins,  with  a  flourish  of  her  cap-strings, 
proclaimed : 

"Mr.  Vox." 

A  minute  later,  both  her  hands  were  in  his,  she  was 
laughing  and  crying  in  the  same  breath,  and  had  lifted 
her  face  with  a  sudden  impulse.  She  blushed,  horri- 
fied, when  he  stooped  and  kissed  her. 

"I  was  so  glad,"  she  excused  herself  in  confusion, 
but  still  laughing.  ' '  I  was  so  glad  to  see  an  old  friend 
again. ' ' 

"You  do  me  honor — 'pon  honor  you  do, "he  said, 
earnestly. 

He  loosed  her  hands,  and  placed  a  chair  for  her. 

"Don't  think  another  minute  about  it,"  he  urged, 
seeing  her  still  blushing.  "Why,  what  a  beastly  sort 
o"  world  it  would  be  if  a  woman  didn't  sometimes  like 
a  chap  well  enough  to  show  him  she  liked  him  a  bit 
better  than  she  liked  any  Dick  or  Harry." 

She  laughed  again. 

"It  is  so  good  of  you  to  come.  It  is  so  nice  to  see 
you,"  she  insisted. 

"Oh,  I  wanted  to  come  safe  enough,"  he  said;  "you 
gave  us  a  cruel  go-by,  Miss  Rivers.  Scarcely  said 
you  were  goin'  even,  and  left  no  address.  I  had  no 
end  of  a  time  discoverin'  you." 

"Did  you  see  me  yesterday — with  the  children  and 
the  mail-cart?" 

"I  thought  it  was  you.     Saw  you  in  church  on  Sun- 


THE  EX-HEIRESS.  243 

day.     I  say,  jolly  pretty  little  kids  you  had  with  you. " 

There  was  a  pause.  Millicent  gathered  the  litter  of 
letters  on  the  table  into  an  orderly  heap. 

"Rippin'  sort  o'  notion  this,  teachin'  kids,"  Vaux 
commented.  "What  made  you  think  of  it?" 

Millicent  blushed  again. 

"Oh,  it  is  ridiculous  to  do  the  same  thing  year  after 
year.  It's  horribly  unenterprising  not  to  strike  into 
fresh  fields.  And  people  ought  to  work — women  ought 
to  work. ' ' 

"Oh,  I  suppose  we  all  ought  to  if  it  comes  to  that," 
he  assented;  "but  why  don't  a  woman  who  wants  to 
teach  kids  teach  kids  of  her  own,  you  know?" 

"That's  a  capital  idea,"  Millicent  laughed;  "but 
suppose  she  has  none?" 

Vaux  caught  the  answer  which  had  been  on  the  tip 
of  his  tongue  in  time. 

"I  won't  say  what  I  was  goin'  to,"  he  said;  "you 
were  always  makin'  a  chap  remember  his  P's  and  Q's. " 

"I  am  seeing  life,"  she  acquainted  him.  "People 
ought  to  have  experiences,  and  see  life,  instead  of 
living  forever  in  one  restricted  circle." 

"I've  seen  life  myself — a  bit,"  he  said,  slowly — "not 
this  way  exactly,  though.  I  should  have  thought  a 
week  would  turn  this  sort  of  life  inside  out,  as  far  as 
experiences  go — if  you  ask  me. ' ' 

She  shook  her  head. 

"I  don't, "  she  said.  "I  like  to  test  things  for  myself. 
And  I  have  learned  heaps  I  never  knew  before. ' ' 

"Dates  and  geography  and  spellin'  and  that.  I 
knew  them  once  when  I  was  up  at  Eton;  but  knockin' 
about  soon  takes  school-books  out  of  you.  I  say,  you 
could  try  a  bit  o'  teachin'  on  me  with  advantage.  I'm 
what  you  may  call  fallow  ground  where  education's 
concerned.  I'm  not  clever  like  you. " 

"But  it  is  not  school  knowledge  I  mean,"  she 
insisted.  "I  mean  facts  of  life,  how  people  live  and 
feel.  There  are  such  numbers  of  things  you  never 
find  out  when  you  only  know,  people  with  their  best 
clothes  on." 


244         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Ah,"  he  commented,  astutely,  "but  they  show 
better  in  "em." 

' '  On  the  contrary.  They  are  not  half  so  nice.  They '  re 
often  snobbish,  and  selfish,  and  vulgar." 

Her  visitor  glanced  round  the  room. 

"I  suppose  here  you  only  wear  your  best  clothes  on 
Sundays?"  he  said. 

"We're  not  rich,  but  we  have  refinement  and  nice 
feeling — nicer  feeling  and  more  refinement  than 
some  people  I  could  name,  who  would  not  be  seen 
bowing  to  us,"  she  protested.  "And,"  she  added 
whimsically,  we  put  on  our  best  frocks  for  Mrs.  Askew- 
Hickox. ' ' 

"Good  Lord!"  he  said,  sympathetically,  "you haven't 
come  so  low  as  that?" 

"We  have  indeed.  We  look  up  to  Mrs.  Askew- 
Hickox  as  to  a  person  of  superior  mold.  We  model 
our  bonnets  on  hers;  we  tremble  lest  she  should 
detect  a  hole  in  our  gloves,  or  dropped  stitches  in  our 
manners.  But  we  might  as  well  attempt  to  propitiate 
the  moon  for  any  effect  we  have  on  her." 

"Why  don't  the  missis — I  s'pose  you  call  her  the 
missis — that  nice  little  woman  you  were  at  church 
with  and  the  rippin'  little  kids — don't  she  know  the 
Hickoxs?  Good  Lord!  why  should  anybody  want  to 
know  'em?  They're — "  He  remembered  recent 
hospitalities,  and,  having  old-fashioned  views  of 
things,  stopped  short.  "They're  very  decent  sort  o' 
people,"  he  concluded,  somewhat  lamely. 

Millicent  told  him  a  few  things. 

"Good  Lord!"  he  said  again,  "I  thought  these  sort 
o'  people  were  all  friendly  and  jolly  together.  Upper 
middle-classes  all  on  terms,  lower  middle-classes  all 
on  terms,  lower  middle-classes  hankerin'  after  upper 
middle-classes,  of  course,  upper  middle-classes  hank- 
erin' after — us,  perhaps,  a  bit,  but  still  all  jolly 
together." 

Millicent  told  him  more. 

"I  say,"  he  said,  "I  like  that  little  woman,  you  know. 
Must  have  been  charmin'  lookin'  before  she  took  to 
cryin.'  She  does  cry  a  good  deal,  don't  she?  Looks 


THE  EX-HEIRESS.  245 

like  it,  anyhow.  An'  rippin'  little  kids!  I'll  bring 
Lady  Ashley  to  call  to-morrow — blest  if  I  won't!  She 
hasn't  a  scrap  o'  nonsense  about  her,  Lady  Ashley 
hasn't.  And  it'll  be  a  reason  for  seein'  you  again. 
Jolly  bright  scheme  I  call  it." 

Millicent  cordially  assenting,  the  subject  changed. 

"Now,  tell  me  things  about  Roldermere,  and  Lady 
Kershaw,  and  the  major,  and  Alicia,  and  everybody. 
It  seems  as  though  they  were  centuries  ago." 

"Why,  you  hear,  don't  you?"  he  queried,  running 
a  quick  eye  over  her  face. 

"Oh,  I  get  letters,"  she  said,  wistfully. 

"Well,  Lady  Kershaw  has  gone  away — went  away 
just  after  the  weddin',  gone  to  live  with  Lord  Ker- 
shaw, though  she  doesn't  get  on  particularly  with  him. 
Major's  back  again,  of  course,  peggin'  away  in  his 
study.  Alicia  jolly  as  ever,  peggin'  away  in  her 
dra win' -room.  Keeps  open  house,  chaps  runnin'  in 
and  out  all  da> — no  end  of  a  time — often  there  myself. 
Wonder  how  Kershaw  manages  to  find  rhymes  with 
such  a  hubbub  goin'  on.  Can't  hear  yourself  speak 
sometimes.  I  tell  you,  Alicia's  goin'  it!  Kershaw's 
givin'  her  too  much  rein.  Don't  do  with  Alicia's  kind. 
Lucky  he  made  that  pile  over  his  last  book.  Nearly 
twenty  thou.,  Alicia  told  me  herself.  Hadn't  a  notion 
poetry  was  such  a  payin'  concern.  Can't  see  much  in 
it  myself,  and  so  I  told  him." 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"Oh,  he  didn't  say  anythin'  remarkable,"  he 
returned,  eyeing  the  wistful  pallor  of  her  cheek  with 
some  grudgingness.  "I've  never  found  Kershaw  so 
magnificent  as  some  people  seem  to." 

"I  am  glad  he  made  money  by  his  book,"  she  said. 
"I  suppose  he  rides  and  takes  life  more  easily  now  he 
is  better  off?" 

"Oh,  I  didn't  say  he  was  better  off.  Alicia  is.  He 
don't  seem  to  have  much  of  the  spendin'  o'  the  money. 
And  he  don't  look  as  if  he'd  found  Alicia  all  his  fancy 
painted  her.  She  wasn't,  of  course,  but  it  was  a  toss- 
up  whether  he'd  ever  discover  it." 

"Doesn't  he  care  for  her?"  Millicent  began,  eagerly. 


246         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

She  caught  herself  up  quickly.     "Of  course  he  cares 
for  her.     You  wouldn't  have  him  spoon  in  public?" 

"Oh,  he's  a  superlative  being,  I  know,"  he  retorted, 
savagely.  ' '  E verythin '  he  does  is  right,  and  no  other 
chap  is  fit  to  make  shoe-leather  for  him."  He  got  up 
hurriedly.  "I  say,"  he  said,  "it  must  be  gettin'  late. 
I  must  be  goin',  I'm  afraid." 

Millicent  laid  a  hand  on  his  arm. 

"Don't  be  cross,"  she  said.  "You  are  so  kind, 
everybody  is  fond  of  you.  But  it  is  natural  I  should 
like  my  cousin  and  admire  him. ' ' 

"Oh,  it's  natural  enough,"  he  said,  gloomily.  "He's 
a  fine  chap,  and  handsome.  I  like  him  myself.  And 
I'm  precious  sorry  for  him. " 

"Sorry!     Why?" 

"Oh,  Alicia's  rather  kittle-cattle.  And  presently 
he'll  have  to  take  the  reins  himself." 

"And  then  things  will  be  all  right." 

Vaux  eyed  her  reflectively. 

"She's  rather  kittle-cattle,"  he  repeated. 

"I  say, "  he  said  later,  when  he  was  going.  "Couldn't 
we  be  old  friends  again  for  a  minute  and  say  good-by 
properly.  It  don't  seem  the  right  sort  o'  thing  for  me 
to  come  in  with  a — kiss,  and  go  out  with  only  a  hand- 
shake. Seems  as  if  I'd  lost  ground,  you  know." 

"Oh,  you  haven't,"  she  laughed.  "It  was  sheer  joy 
at  seeing  you — and  absence  of  mind.  I  am  quite 
ashamed  of  myself.  I  don't  know  what  you  must 
think  of  me. v 

"Yes,  you  know  what  I  think  of  you,"  he  said, 
seriously.  "But  I  shall  come  again  to-morrow  and 
bring  Lady  Ashley.  And  tell  the  little  woman  she 
needn't  trouble  to  put  on  her  best  frock.  She  won't 
be  as  shabby  as  Lady  Ashley,  I'll  be  bound,  whatever 
she  wears. ' ' 

Millicent  smiled.     "I  will  tell  her." 

He  held  her  hand  a  moment.     "When  I  come  to 
morrow,"  he  said,  looking  into  her  eyes,  "I  shall  want 
to  see  you  five  minutes  alone.     I  have  somethin'  to 
say.     You  will  have  to-night  to  think  it  over. ' ' 

He  was  gone.     But  he  came  back. 


THE  EX-HEIRESS.  247 

"Oh,  I  say,"  he  said,  diffidently,  "you  don't  mind 
me  askin',  but  it  struck  me  you're  perhaps  not  mas- 
quer adin',  but  maybe  have  lost  money  or  somethin' 
and  had  to  take  to  governessin',  not  from  choice,  you 
know?" 

"No,"  she  assured  him.      "I  have  not  lost  money." 

He  seemed  relieved.  "That's  all  right,"  he  said. 
"Then  what  I've  got  to  say  will  keep  till  to-morrow." 

As  he  mounted  his  horse,  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox 
flashed  past  in  all  the  smartness  of  a  fresh  fine  toilette. 
She  bowed  and  smiled  with  rare  effusiveness.  But 
her  cordiality  was  lost.  He  was  in  a  brown  study. 

"Of  all  the  devoted  fools,"  he  was  muttering,  "and 
you  have  only  a  beggarly  six  hundred  a  year,  and  are 
up  to  your  eyes  in  debt  a  month  before  each  quarter- 
day.  And  she  might  have  lost  every  penny  of  her 
money  and  you  might  have  played  Don  Quixote.  The 
gods  are  better  to  some  fools  than  some  fools  deserve. " 

"He's  keeping  her  for  himself,"  Mrs.  Askew- 
Hickox,  noting  his  face,  reflected.  She  doffed  the 
smile  he  had  not  profited  by. 

"Over  a  hundred  thousand  and  a  governess!  and 
she  must  be  all  right,  or  he  wouldn't  think  of  her. 
There's  something  queer  though.  Harold  must  go 
slowly.  There  are  other  girls  with  money  for  a  man 
of  his  looks. ' ' 

She  paused  in  her  calculations  to  bestow  her  very 
smallest  smile  upon  the  doctor's  wife — the  wrong 
doctor's  wife — who  just  then  passed  in  her  husband's 
phaeton.  That  worthy  woman  took  the  grudging 
good  the  goddess  gave  her  thankfully.  She  was  a 
bundle  of  sweet-smelling,  homely  virtues,  spending  her 
life  in  simple  services  and  cheery  kindlinesses;  but 
she  harbored  that  weakness  for  the  meretricious  which 
is  the  undoing  of  her  sex — and  she  worshiped  smart- 
ness from  afar  off.  She  was  proud  to  be  smiled  at, 
never  so  meagrely,  by  a  person  turned  out  as  costum- 
ers,  milliners,  coachbuilders,  and  horse-breeders 
turned  out  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox.  She  laid  in  tribute  at 
the  feet  beneath  the  handsome  crested  rug,  a  defer- 
ential smile  of  gratitude,  and  went  her  shabby  human 


248  WOMAN  AND  TH  E  SHADOW. 

way  rejoicing,  for  no  better  reason  than  that  a  Parisian 
bonnet  had  bent  the  fraction  of  an  inch  in  her  direc- 
tion. Poor,  good,  stupid  heart!  as  though  one  whole- 
some, human  impulse  were  not  worth  a  thousand  social 
artifices ! 

When  Lady  Ashley's  carriage  rolled  next  afternoon 
into  the  quiet  road  where  Poplar  Villa  stood,  Mrs. 
Malcolm  had  opened  her  windows,  and,  one  compre- 
hensive sweep  of  her  shrewd  eyes  up  and  down  the 
street  showing  her  the  coast  clear,  had  thrust  out  a 
watering-can,  and  was  about  to  sprinkle  the  parched 
flowers  of  her  window-boxes. 

For  the  first  time  on  record  the  correct-minded  one 
had  failed  in  his  appointed  duty ;  and,  after  some  hours' 
conflict  with  the  conventions  and  the  humanities,  for 
the  day  was  hot  and  dusty,  and  the  marguerites  and 
pink  geraniums  paled  and  flagged,  the  humanities  had 
got  the  better  of  the  conventions. 

She  was  a  woman  of  considerable  independence,  but 
she  was  not  prepared  to  be  seen  watering  the  plants  of 
window-boxes  in  the  eye  of  the  public  street.  And 
she  knew  too  much  of  the  idiosyncrasies  of  plants  and 
ways  of  parlor-maids  to  intrust  the  welfare  of  the  one 
to  the  ministrations  of  the  other. 

So,  choosing  an  hour  when  the  road  was  quiet,  she 
cautiously  lifted  a  window,  and,  armed  with  her 
watering-can,  proceeded  to  slake  the  floral  thirst. 

Then  carriage-wheels  sounded  at  the  top  of  the  road 
and  warned  her  of  an  approach.  She  had  only  time 
enough  to  withdraw  her  arm  when  the  well-known 
cockaded,  shabby  hat  of  Lady  Ashley's  coachman  rolled 
into  view. 

He  was  preparing  to  pull  up. 

"I  shall  say  'not  at  home,'"  she  decided,  firmly. 
"She  was  here  on  Tuesday.  I  cannot  have  her  calling 
twice  in  one  week,  upsetting  all  my  plans. ' ' 

Mrs.  Malcolm,  having  nothing  in  the  world  to  do, 
invariably  made  elaborate  plans  for  doing  this.  And 
that  afternoon  she  was  having  a  swing  erected  in  the 
garden,  greatly  to  the  exasperation  of  the  correct- 
minded  one. 


THE  EX-HEIRESS.  249 

"Ef  you're  a-goin'  to  swing  yerself  over  that  there 
lawn  I've  put  so  much  into,"  he  said,  with  the  familiar 
aggressiveness  of  invaluable  gardeners,  "I'll  lay  you 
there'll  be  a  patch  o'  bareness  six  feet  long  in  that 
there  turf  afore  a  fortnit's  out.  There  ain't  nothink 
cuts  a  lawn  up  so  as  swings — nasty,  sickly  sort  o' 
things  I  call  'em — turnin'  a  person's  vittles  upsydown." 

"I  shall  not  swing,"  Mrs.  Malcolm  insisted  with 
dignity,  and  stalked  into  the  house. 

"I  don't  wonder  you're  ashamed  o'  it  at  your  time  o' 
life,"  Snagg  apostrophized  her,  with  the  peculiar 
malignity  inseparable  from  superior  gardening;  "buu 
you  needn't  tell  me  you're  puttin'  up  a  expensive 
noosance  of  a  swing  only  for  the  express  puppus  o'  not 
swingin'  on  it,  becos  you're  not  that  sort. 

' '  Oh,  no, ' '  he  persisted,  shaking  his  head  sardonically 
above  a  shovelful  of  stuff  he  had  just  flung  upon  a 
barrow,  and  speaking  with  withering  significance.  "I 
tell  you  straight  she  ain't,  and  never  'as  bin,  not  as 
long  as  I've  know'd  her — and  that's  a  while — not 
anyways  that  sort. " 

He  filled  the  barrow  with  mold  from  one  spot  in 
order  to  empty  it  upon  some  other,  after  the  devious 
and  inexplicible  ways  of  gardeners.  Having  emptied 
and  spread  it  to  his  satisfaction,  and  wheeled  the  bar- 
row to  a  third  spot  in  order  to  abstract  mold  therefrom 
for  the  replenishing  of  the  first  spot,  he  began  again 
as  though  the  thought  reverberated. 

"You  ain't  that  sort,"  he  muttered,  raising  his 
gnarled  stature  out  of  the  opulence  of  beauty  he  spent 
his  life  in  nurturing.  "You  ain't  that  sort,  and,"  as 
though  dismissing  the  human  race  in  a  final  maledic- 
tion, "I  ain't  never  seen  nobody  yet  that  was!" 

Meanwhile  Mrs.  Malcolm  fluttered  into  the  house. 

"To  be  suspected  of  such  a  thing, "  she  cried  indig- 
nantly. "Me  swing!  Why,  I  shall  be  suspected  of 
bicycling  next !  I  have  a  good  mind  to  countermand 
the  thing,  because,  no  doubt,  as  he  says,  it  will  pull  up 
the  lawn,  though  goodness  knows  what  is  to  be  done 
with  those  children  if  they  make  up  their  minds  some 
fine  day  to  climb  over  the  fence.  •  One  must  protect 


250  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

the  flowers!  They  might  be  tempted  by  the  swing. 
Otherwise,  they  might  not  even  leave  a  marigold. 
One  is  absolutely  at  their  mercy. " 

She  stood  looking  from  the  window  at  the  gardener 
wheeling  mold. 

"Now  I  wonder  what  Snagg  is  muttering  about  and 
going  on  so  for?  I  suppose  it  is  rather  hard  on  him 
to  cut  his  lawn  up. ' '  (Nobody  ever  regards  his  horti- 
cultural possessions  as  belonging  to  any  but  his 
gardener.)  "Hodgson  shall  give  him  some  cold  meat 
and  ale.  He  is  very  hard-working,  poor  man.  " 

She  rang  the  bell  and  issued  orders.  She  felt 
relieved  to  see  him  lift  his  head,  surlily,  listen  to  the 
parlor-maid's  message  stonily,  and  finally,  after  some 
persuasion,  fling  down  his  shovel  savagely,  like  a  man 
compelled  against  his  will,  and  follow  her  into  the 
house,  wiping  his  lips  as  he  went. 

"He  does  seem  put  about,"  she  reflected;  "but  he 
would  have  been  still  more  put  about  to  come  some 
day  and  find  not  a  blossom  standing  in  the  garden. 
That  little  girl  has  impudence  enough  for  anything, 
and  conscience — if  she  has  any  conscience  worth 
speaking  of,  I'm  a  Dutchwoman." 

She  did  not  look  at  all  unlike  one,  standing,  placid 
and  round  and  comfortable,  in  the  sunlight  of  the 
window.  She  cast  a  wistful  eye  along  the  fence. 

"Of  course  I  shouldn't  think  of  calling,"  she  said, 
firmly. 

The  afternoon  whereon  the  swing  was  to  be  inaugu- 
rated had  arrived,  and  here  was  Lady  Ashley  also 
arriving  a  second  time  within  the  week. 

She  crossed  the  room  to  acquaint  the  maid  that  she 
was  out. 

"I  cannot  have  my  arrangements  so  upset,"  she 
insisted,  trying  to  conceal  from  herself  that  her  only 
arrangement  was  the  propitiation  of  the  next-door 
children  by  this  lure  of  gaily-painted  poles  with  scarlet 
ropes  and  tassels,  swinging  a  gilded-cushioned  boat 
with  seats  for  two.  Who,  with  the  breath  of  childhood 
in  his  nostrils,  or  any  scent  for  sport,  could  fail  to 
answer  to  it? 


THE  EX-HEIRESS  251 

"Why,  good  gracious,  if  she  hasn't  stopped  next 
door,"  she  exclaimed.  "Simcox  must  be  drunk.  No, 
Lady  Ashley  nods  up  .to  my  flower-boxes,  and  sends 
the  footman  up  the  steps  of  Poplar  Villa.  Well,  if 
this  is  not  astonishing. ' ' 

The  footman  returned  with  a  note.  He  delivered  it 
to  a  thin,  distinguished-looking  man  by  Lady  Ashley's 
side.  He,  opening  it,  showed  signs  of  disappoint- 
ment, and,  after  a  minute 's  conversation,  Lady  Ashley 
nodded  instructions  to  the  man,  and  they  drove  off. 

As  they  disappeared  through  the  far  gate  of  the 
drive,  another  carriage  entered  by  the  near. 

"The   doctor    again,"   Mrs.    Malcolm   commented. 

"That's  the  second  time  to-day.  Somebody  must 
be  ill. "  Her  heart  went  down  into  her  boots.  She 
dropped  suddenly  into  a  chair. 

A  man  was  coming  up  the  drive,  trundling  a  hand- 
cart. On  it  were  piled  a  couple  of  iron  poles,  gaily 
painted,  with  gilded  knobs  and  tripod  stanchions. 
Before  these  lay  a  cushioned  car,  with  scarlet  rails  and 
seats  for  two. 

' '  I  should  be  sorry  if  anything  happened  to  that  little 
girl, ' '  Mrs.  Malcolm  murmured  faintly. 

She  decided  that  it  was  probably  only  measles. 

She  could  not  keep  her  mind  from  furnishing  unwel- 
come examples  of  cases  of  measles  which  had  ended 
fatally.  She  forgot  that  her  tea  had  been  standing 
more  than  three  minutes. 

"Why,  what  nonsense,"  she  expostulated  with  her- 
self, pacing  up  and  down  the  room;  "it  may  be  merely 
a  cold  or  a  bilious  attack. ' ' 

"One  might  send  a  message,"  she  said  presently; 
"it  would  be  only  civil.  " 

But  she  was  of  a  lymphatic  temperament  and  obsti- 
nate. She  sent  no  message. 

She  drank  her  tea,  and  did  not  even  remark  the 
tannin  roughness  she  considered  ruinous  to  digestion. 

"If  I  had  called,"  she  said,  "I  might  have  sent  in 
some  of  that  champagne-cream  cook  does  so  well. 
Children  like  sweets,  and  it  is  very  sustaining. ' ' 


252         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

She  began  to  cry.  Her  placid  face  broke  out  of  its 
composure,  all  its  smooth  surface  suddenly  wet. 

"Mrs.  Barling  might  have  let  her  come  to  tea,"  she 
fretted.  "I  should  have  liked  to  kiss  her  little  face.  " 

For  composure  she  went  into  the  garden.  The  man 
with  the  swing  and  the  gardener  were  at  high  words. 
The  man  with  the  swing,  recognizing  himself  as  no 
match  for  the  gardener,  was  emphasizing  words 
comparison  told  him  were  odiously  weak  by  hammering 
at  intervals  with  his  mallet  on  the  iron  stanchions. 

As  she  proceeded  to  make  peace,  a  white,  perturbed 
face  was  thrust  above  the  fence. 

"For  God's  sake,  madam,"  Mr.  Barling  said,  with 
the  fierceness  of  grief,  "keep  those  men  of  yours  quiet. 
My  wife  is  dangerously  ill.  " 


SICKNESS  AT  POPLAR  VILLA.  253 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 
SICKNESS  AT  POPLAR  VILLA. 

"Oho!    my  washing's  begun, 

I  wish,  and  I  wish,  and  I  wish  it  were  done." 

For  some  weeks  past  Mrs.  Barling  had  not  been  feel- 
ing well.  Indeed,  she  could  scarcely  remember  back 
so  long  as  to  recall  the  time  when  to  live  had  held  any 
element  of  pleasure.  There  were  so  many  things  that 
needed  to  be  done,  so  many  duties,  anxieties,  and 
necessities  to  face  when  night  turned  on  its  inexorable 
hinge  and  opened  up  another  day,  that  the  gray  light 
stealing  through  the  drawn  blinds  smote  her  faint  and 
sick,  lest  that  day  had  come  when  she  would  go  down 
in  the  battle  of  Appearances.  She  would  cower, 
shivering  before  the  light  as  before  some  oncoming 
foe,  holding  her  breath  the  while  it  marshaled  against 
her  its  legion  obligations,  inexorable,  multifold.  This 
— and  this — and  this,  till  she  was  sick  and  dizzy  with 
the  tale  of  them,  and  with  the  fret  of  them,  and  with 
the  dust  of  them,  and  with  -the  tire  of  devising  ways 
of  meeting  or  even  of  evading  them;  for  she  had 
reached  that  stage  of  brain  and  tissue  languor  when 
the  will  surrenders  to  the  laxity  of  spent  nerves,  sanc- 
tioning and  condoning  scamped  or  neglected  work. 
And  then  her  conscience,  rooted  in  emotions  which,  as 
mind  and  will  nagged,  grew  ever  more  turbulent,  sat 
in  nightmare  judgment  on  her.  Yesterday,  for  the 
first  Wednesday  in  the  history  of  Poplar  Villa,  she  had 
omitted  to  wash  the  Worcester,  had  paid  the  butcher's 
bill  without  adding  up  each  page  of  figures,  had 
pulled  the  corner  of  a  rug  over  a  rent  she  should  have 
mended  in  the  dining-room  carpet.  Last  night  she 
had  answered  Kew  ill  temperedly,  and  he,  poor  fellow, 
had  so  much  to  bear  all  day  in  that  odious  city,  that  he 
might  well  expect  gentleness  and  patience  at  home. 


254         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

Or  she  remembered  with  guilty  tremors  that  she  had 
given  away  a  frock  of  Ruby's  for  no  better  reason 
than  that  its  presence  in  a  drawer  upstairs  pricked  her 
with  perpetual  reminders  that  a  little  cutting  down 
would  fashion  it  into  a  nice  winter  suit  for  baby.  At 
the  time,  she  had  told  herself  it  was  a  charity  to  give 
it  to  the  charwoman  for  her  little  grandchild ;  but  in 
the  watches  of  the  night,  face  to  face  with  her  accusing 
conscience,  her  true  motive  asserted  itself  in  such  dis- 
torted guise  and  damning  color  that  she  moaned  for 
the  mercy  of  forgetfulness. 

She  had  got  into  a  way  of  waking  early,  and  in  the 
gray  of  dawn  the  anxious  mind  sees  spectres. 

Four  more  months  had  passed,  and  nobody  had 
called.  Nobody  would  call  now.  All  her  cares  had 
been  for  nothing.  The  handsome  tea-cloth  and 
cosey,  into  which  she  had  worked  so  many  hopes  and 
dear  ambitions,  showed  signs  of  moth  when  last  she 
had  unfolded  them.  Seeing  these,  she  had  sat  down 
drearily  with  her  cheek  against  the  iron  of  the  bed-rail ; 
for  had  not  the  moth  got  also  into  her  life?  She  shook 
her  treasures  out  with  rueful  hands,  and  passed  them 
on  to  Parkins  for  every-day  use.  Somebody  beside 
the  moths  might  as  well  get  the  benefit  of  them! 
She  decided  wearily  that  she  must  work  another  set. 
But  a  week  had  passed  and  she  had  not  even  bought 
materials.  She  was  appalled  by  that  in  herself  which 
had  suffered  her  to  let  a  week  elapse  without  having 
bought  materials.  Did  it  mean  that  she  had  wholly 
abandoned  hope?  Did  it  mean  that  she  had  resigned 
herself  to  the  inevitable — and  that  inevitable,  Wink- 
worth's  excommunication — the  world's  proscription? 
No,  no,  it  could  never  be  that — life  could  never  be  so 
cruel !  Somebody  would  surely  call.  And  then  in  the 
dawn  a  chasm  yawned  before  her — the  chasm  of  a 
domestic  dishonor  of  possessing  no  better  cosey  and 
cloth  to  set  before  a  visitor  than  one  moth-nibbled 
along  a  border,  and  stained  with  a  mark  where  Ruby 
had  turned  her  mug  of  milk  over  it. 

She  wondered  why  Mrs.  Malcolm  invited  the  chil- 
dren to  tea.  Was  it  really  a  friendly  advance?  or  did 


SICKNESS  AT  POPLAR  VILLA.  255 

it  mean  that,  though  she  had  no  intention  of  knowing 
the  parents,  she  was  willing  to  patronize  the  children? 
She  was  glad  she  had  written  as  she  did.  Yet  it 
would  have  been  pleasant  for  Robby  and  Ruby  to  go 
sometimes  to  a  little  party  like  other  children.  And 
Mrs.  Malcolm  looked  kind,  though  one  could  see  by 
the  air  with  which  she  walked  about  her  garden  that 
she  thought  a  good  deal  of  herself.  It  had  been  nice 
of  her  to  return  the  hyacinths,  and  to  ask  that  Ruby 
should  not  be  punished.  Ruby  was  already  the  occu- 
pant of  a  corner  fenced  in  by  a  chair  when  the  message 
arrived,  and  Mrs.  Barling  had  immediately  and  con- 
scientiously released  her,  telling  her  it  was  Mrs.  Mal- 
colm's wish. 

"Yuby  stick  her  wiv  a  knife — one — two — free, "was 
all  the  thanks  that  lady  got — and  this  with  a  most  vin- 
dictive action  of  the  hands  and  Robby 's  pencil-case. 

Mrs.  Barling  smiled  faintly,  recalling  the  rosy, 
invincible  face. 

"I  had  some  spirit  once, "  she  said,  turning  a  wan 
cheek  restlessly  upon  the  pillow. 

Then  she  reverted  to  her  spectre-grappling. 

She  would  like  to  get  away  for  a  change,  never  so 
slight  a  change  from  the  carking  routine  of  Poplar 
Villa,  with  its  stocking-mending,  towel-marking,  china- 
washing,  butchers'  bills,  and  cold  muttons;  its  ever 
recurring  breakfasts,  dinners,  and  teas,  and  the  end- 
less considerations  and  vigilances  subtending  these. 
She  could  cope  with  them  when  she  had  been  stronger. 
But  now!  Oh,  she  would  like  to  get  away!  Yet  there 
was  little  enough  chance  of  that.  Kew  had  been  doing 
fairly  of  late,  but  he  had  launched  upon  some  specu- 
lations, and  there  would  be  no  returns  till  autumn,  so 
that  the  children  and  she  would  have  to  do  without  a 
change  this  year.  She  sat  up  quietly  in  bed  and  faced 
it — a  careworn  little  woman,  hollow-eyed  for  want  of 
sleep,  thin  and  harassed,  with  the  faded  cloud  of  that 
which  had  been  golden  hair  around  her,  a  pretty 
embroidered  frill  about  her  wasted  throat.  She 
searched  into  the  shadows  of  the  drab  dawn  for  an 
answer  to  her  question.  Then  she  shuddered  softly 


256        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

down  again  upon  her  pillow,  shaken  with  sobs.  No ; 
she  could  never  keep  up  till  next  year.  She  knew  it 
all  at  once.  She  knew  it  to  a  certainty.  Oh !  but  she 
could  never  leave  them — she  could  never  leave  them — 
Kew  and  Robby  and  Ruby  and  the  Baby ;  her  Kew, 
her  Robby,  her  Ruby,  her  Baby!  Dear  God!  dear, 
merciful  God!  don't  take  her  away  from  them,  don't 
take  her  away!  Who  would  mend  for  them,  and  make 
for  them,  and  think  for  them  as  she  had  done  ?  Who 
could  care  for  them  as  she  had  done?  And  yet  it  had 
all  been  to  no  purpose ;  she  had  not  advanced  them 
one  whit.  For  all  Kew 's  industry,  and  sterling  worth, 
and  handsomeness ;  for  all  her  children 's  beauty  and 
intelligence;  for  all  the  refinements  and  daintinesses 
she  had  gathered  into  her  home,  her  dear  ones  were 
but  outsiders,  unrecognized,  ostracized,  as  isolated  as 
though  they  had  been  criminals  or  lepers.  What  a 
mistake  it  had  been,  this  immigration  to  Winkworth, 
entered  on  with  such  high  hopes,  sustained  by  dint  of 
so  much  toil  and  health-wreckage.  She  could  see  now 
what  a  mistake  it  had  been.  And  yet  she  could  have 
borne  the  toil  had  there  not  been  the  added  miseries 
of  disappointment,  the  daily  thwarted  hope  that  some- 
body would  call  to  see  her  pretty  home  and  children, 
and  leave  her  menkind's  cards  for  Kew.  It  seemed  as 
though  she  had  been  silently  burying  black  days  ever 
since  they  came  to  Winkworth,  and  each  day  the  coffin 
of  a  hope. 

The  melancholy  baby,  dreaming  of  oceanic  wonders, 
gurgled  ecstatically  in  his  sleep,  and  pushed  his  soft 
limbs  against  her.  On  the  further  side  of  him,  locked 
in  the  stupor  of  dog-tiredness,  Kew  lay — for  after  that 
fashion  which  has  been  termed  the  "hugger-mugger" 
of  middle-class  marriage,  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  did  not 
enjoy  the  luxury  of  a  bedroom  to  herself — a  luxury 
which  is  the  first  of  all  essentials  to  those  who  would 
preserve  the  reticences  and  restraints,  the  delicacies 
and  mysteries,  lying  at  the  root  of  love.  She  drew  a 
hand,  tender  and  light  as  a  snowflake,  though  neither 
white  nor  delicate,  adown  the  velvet  softness  of  the 
baby-limbs.  How  she  loved  it!  how  she  loved  it! 


SICKNESS  AT  POPLAR  VILLA.  257 

Its  poor  sickliness  and  melancholy  only  knit  her  closer 
to  it.  It  needed  her  so  pitifully.  For  hours  it  would 
set  crooning  in  her  lap,  apathetic,  but  content  as  long- 
as  she  were  with  it. 

Robby  and  Ruby,  thank  God!  were  sturdier  and 
stronger;  they  would  do  well  enough.  But  baby,  with 
his  weak  digestion  and  limp  limbs,  who  would  see 
scrupulously  to  his  food,  who  would  bathe  and  rub 
his  curving  bones  when — when  what? 

She  was  growing  hysterical!  When  she  had  been 
eighteen  and  sentimental  she  had  given  way  to  silly 
fancyings  of  an  early  death,  of  lying  in  her  coffin 
maybe  in  her  bridal  robes,  with  her  hair  let  down 
about  her  shoulders,  a  smile  on  her  waxen  face,  and 
flowers  at  her  breast.  Heavens!  how  different  life 
was  from  a  girl 's  imaginings.  There  was  little  enough 
room  in  real  life  for  such  flimsy  sentimentalities.  If 
she  were  lying  in  her  coffin,  baby  would  probably  be 
drawing  sour  milk  into  his  poor  irritable  stomach. 
That  was  a  consideration  to  drive  whimsies  and  self- 
pity  from  a  woman 's  heart.  If  she  were  in  her  coffin 
who  would  see  that  Kew  put  on  his  winter  vests  before 
November,  or  that  he  had  shoes  at  the  office  to  change 
on  wet  days?  No,  truly !  At  eighteen  she  might  have 
died  with  a  clear  conscience,  and  as  many  hysterical 
imaginings  as  pleased  her.  Now  she  had  no  right. 
Tired?  She  was  tired;  but  a  person  must  not  sleep 
for  no  better  reason  than  tire  while  her  day's  work 
was  still  undone. 

She  would  set  about  that  winter  frock  for  the  little 
fellow  this  very  morning.  There  was  a  remnant  of 
stuff  she  had  bought  for  a  bodice  which  would  make 
him  a  pretty,  warm  suit. 

She  would  not  tell  Kew  how  the  milkman  had  been 
setting  down  a  pint  more  milk  daily  than  they  had 
had.  It  would  only  vex  him,  and  he  had  more  than 
enough  to  vex  him.  She  would  go  herself  to  the  dairy 
and  get  it  put  right.  Kew's  boots  needed  soling  and 
heeling.  There  was  a  grease  spot  on  the  shoulder  of 
his  new  light  overcoat.  The  last  bottle  of  benzine 
had  been  thrown  away  by  mistake,  though  it  had  been 


258         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

half  full.  How  careless  servants  were !  Well,  on  her 
way  back  from  the  dairy  she  would  call  in  at  the  chem- 
ist's  for  another  bottle.  She  must  look  to  the  lamps. 
Another  chimney  broke  last  evening  in  the  midst  of 
dinner,  and  Kew  had  been  cross.  He  had  said  the 
burner  must  be  dirty,  and  why  couldn't  those  idle 
maids  'or  somebody  see  to  things  properly.  She 
would  look  to  the  burner  herself. 

Two  of  Kew 's  handkerchiefs  were  missing  when  the 
laundry  things  came  home.  She  must  remember  to 
speak  of  it.  She  wondered  if  last  spring's  bonnet 
would  supply  materials  enough  to  make  one  for  the 
coming  spring.  She  could  iron  out  that  gauze  and 
quill  it  up  like  that  in  the  bonnet  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox 
wore  oil  Sunday.  Now,  how  in  the  world  was  it  done? 
She  had  meant  to  remember.  She  had  remembered 
yesterday.  It  was  simple  enough  and  so  very  stylish 
if  only  she  could  remember  how  to  do  it.  It  went 
in  and  out  here  and  back  again  there.  No,  that  was 
wrong.  It  was  pleated  to  one  side,  and  gathered  into 
a  knot  high  up.  Heavens !  how  her  head  ached.  If 
only  she  could  sleep.  It  was  these  early  morning 
wakings  that  were  wrecking  her.  Oh,  yes,  it  was 
simple  enough,  the  second  pleat  folded  over  the  first 
— and  the  third.  Now,  how  was  the  third  done?  The 
third  went  this  way  across  the  second,  and  was  caught 
up  like — oh,  spare  her!  spare  her!  Heavens!  what 
did  it  matter — what  did  it  matter?  She  would  do 
without  bonnet  for  the  remainder  of  her  life  if  only 
she  could  sleep  a  little. 

Thank  God,  weariness,  somnolence,  slee —  But  the 
baby  woke.  He  stroked  a  languid  hand  caressingly 
across  her  fevered  cheek.  "Mummy,  "  he  murmured. 

She  woke  with  a  start,  and  having  hushed  him  to 
silence,  began  again  upon  the  folding  of  that  gauze. 

There  were  great  wide  ways  of  thought  in  the 
world,  great  books,  great  music,  mountains,  meadows, 
and  green  forests,  whence  a  tired  mind  might  draw 
refreshment ;  but  in  the  meantime  dust  would  settle 
on  the  sideboard,  moths  start  nibbling  the  curtains, 
and  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  cry  fie!  upon  a  bonnet  six 


SICKNESS  AT  POPLAR  VILLA.  259 

months  out  of  fashion.  So  Mrs.  Barling,  having  kept 
the  baby  quiet  for  an  hour,  in  order  that  Kew  might 
sleep  his  sleep  out,  got  up  presently  with  the  lead  lids 
and  hot,  dry  cheeks  of  wakefulness  to  iron  out  and 
quill  that  gauze  and  wash  the  Worcester. 

Till  one  morning  when  Kew  woke,  she  said,  faintly : 

"I  think  I  shall  breakfast  in  bed,  dear.  My  throat 
is  a  little  sore  and  my  limbs  ache. ' ' 

"It's  that  confounded  gardening,"  he  broke  out, 
fiercely,  with  a  sudden  cramp  at  his  heart  for  some- 
thing he  saw  in  her  face.  "I  told  you  you  would  take 
cold  last  night. " 

"Don't  scold  me,"  she  said,  piteously.  "I  shall 
soon  be  better.  But  I  couldn't  leave  that  sweet-pea 
bed  choked  with  weeds  right  in  front  of  the  drawing- 
room  window. "  * 

"Somebody  might  call,"  he  said,  sardonically.  He 
was  not  in  good  temper,  having  heard  rumors  the 
previous  evening  of  the  most  hopeful  of  his  specula- 
tions, and  having  spent  part  of  the  night  deliberating 
whether  it  would  not  be  wiser  to  sell  out. 

"I  scarcely  think  so  now,  dear,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling 
said,  pathetically,  hiding  the  wetness  of  her  eyes  in 
the  sleeve  of  her  bedgown. 

Kew  brought  up  her  breakfast  himself.  "There's  a 
letter  for  you,"  he  said,  cheerily.  "And  NovaScotias 
have  risen.  We  may  get  to  the  sea  after  all.  Why, 
Molly,  Molly,  little  woman,  you've  never  turned 
against  your  tea.  I  poured  it  out  myself,"  he  added, 
somewhat  shamefacedly;  for,  after  all,  it  might  be 
nothing  more  than  a  cold,  and  sentiment  and  fussing 
were  not  his  forte. 

"Oh,  I  will  drink  it  presently,"  she  faltered.  "My 
throat  hurts  less  already.  I  will  drink  it  presently. 
How  nice  of  you  to  pour  it  out." 

"If  I  have  time,"  he  said,  later,  coming  in  with  his 
bag  in  his  hand  and  his  hat  on,  "I  will  try  and  get  you 
some  grapes.  Or  is  there  anything  else  you  would 
like?" 

"Don't  bother  if  you  are  busy,"  she  said,  hoarsely, 
"I  am  better  already." 


260         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Well,  good-by, "  he  said,  eyeing  her  guiltily. 
"Mind  you  take  care.  Oh,  and  I  think  I'll  call  in  on 
Barnby  and  ask  him  to  see  you."  Then  he  was 
gone. 

"Oh,  I  should  have  liked  to  kiss  him,"  she  cried, 
out  of  the  raw  misery  of  her  galled  emotions,  "only  I 
don't  want  him  to  get  a  bad  throat. " 

It  was  twelve  before  Barnby  called. 

"Why,  what  have  you  been  doing  with  yourself?" 
he  remonstrated.  "You've  lost  pounds  since  I  last 
saw  you. ' ' 

After  he  had  examined  her  throat  his  manner 
became  markedly  cheerful.  He  smiled  and  rubbed  his 
hands  encouragingly,  and  beamed. 

"Get  up?"  he  echoed.  "Oh,  you  had  better  stop  in 
bed  a  day  or  two  and  get  your  strength  up.  But  keep 
the  youngsters  away,  throats  have  a  way  of  being 
catching,  and  you  don't  want  them  laid  by." 

There  was  nothing  cheerful  in  his  manner  by  the 
time  he  reached  the  hall. 

"Are  you  in  charge?"  he  questioned  Millicent.  "I 
think  you  should  send  for  her  mother,  or  some  relative 
older  than  you.  And  for  goodness'  sake  keep  the  chil- 
dren from  her.  It's  a  bad  diphtheria.  I  shall  wire  for 
a  couple  of  nurses,"  he  said;  "she  must  not  be  left 
day  or  night." 

"I  should  like  to  do  the  day-nursing, "  Millicent  said. 

"Well,  I  think  you  might,"  he  said,  observing  her, 
"if  you  take  care  to  do  as  I  say.  She's  a  timid  little 
woman,  and  it  might  frighten  her  to  have  only  stran- 
gers about  her.  But  you  must  send  the  children  away ; 
you  must  not  go  to  the  children  from  her  room. " 

"There  is  nowhere  to  send  them,"  she  demurred. 

"Why,  isn't  there  a  friend  or  a  neighbor  with  no 
children  who  would  take  them?" 

"No,"  the  governess  retorted,  savagely. 

"Who  lives  next  door?  It  is  only  common  human- 
ity. Are  there  children  there?  Oh,  Mrs.  Malcolm. 
I've  met  her.  No,  I  scarcely  think  she  would  do. 
Well,  we  must  see  what  Barling  says  when  he  comes 
home.  I  shall  call  in  the  evening. ' ' 


SICKNESS  AT  POPLAR  VILLA.  261 

Millicent  sat  down  in  the  drawing-room  for  a  min- 
ute's deliberation.  She  had  never  faced  illness  wherein 
she  had  any  responsibility.  Now  it  seemed  as  though 
the  responsibility  of  the  household  were  to  be  all  at 
once  shifted  to  her  inexperienced  shoulders. 

She  wrote  a  hurried  note  for  Vaux  when  he  should 
call.  It  would  be  better  not  to  see  him.  She  remem- 
bered the  tone  in  which  he  had  spoken  of  something 
he  had  to  say  to  her.  It  had  made  her  uneasy.  It 
would — though  she  was  fond  of  him — be  rather  a  relief 
to  escape  the  t£te-a-tete  he  sought.  Perhaps  he  had 
mistaken  her  stupid  absent-mindedness,  she  reflected, 
with  some  abasement. 

"Why,  Punch,  old  man,  what  is  it?" 

Punch  was  sitting  a  yard  away  from  her,  whining 
uneasily,  his  eyes  fixed  on  her  face  like  two  black 
glittering  questions.  There  was  searching  interroga- 
tion in  every  furrow  of  his  ugly  visage.  She  sat  star- 
ing at  him.  The  intelligent  solicitude  of  him  seemed 
uncanny. 

"How  did  you  know?"  she  questioned,  as  one  human 
of  another. 

He  lifted  his  great,  uncouth  muzzle  and  gave  a  dis- 
mal howl.  The  shrill  of  desolation  in  it  set  her  nerves 
on  edge. 

"No,  no,"  she  cried,  recalling  the  tradition  of  a 
dog's  howl,  and  appealing  to  that  in  him  which  seemed 
a  higher  sense,  "it  is  never  that.  It  can  never  end 
like  that." 

The  dog  is  more  fortunate  than  man  in  that  he  has 
no  possibility  of  unbelief  and  irreligion.  His  God  is 
before  him  in  the  flesh.  He  is  privileged  by  his 
caresses.  He  may  lick  the  hand  and  lie  at  the  feet  of 
this  omnipotent  Arbiter  of  his  destiny,  in  whose  power 
not  only  well-being,  health,  and  happiness,  but  even 
existence,  lie.  His  God,  it  may  be,  rules  him  with  a 
whip,  or  with  kicks  and  curses,  but  he  is  none  the  less 
his  God,  the  Great  Omnipotence,  at  whose  heels  he 
humbly  follows,  whose  nod  is  law,  whose  company  is 
food  and  fire  and  home,  for  whose  behest  he  forsakes 
kith  and  kin  to  follow  through  a  life's  vicissitudes; 


262         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

who  may  tie  a  brick  about  his  neck  and  put  out  all  he 
knows  of  life.  The  dog  is  happier  than  the  man,  for 
he  loves  much,  and  judges  not  at  all ! 

Punch  had  never  been  lavish  of  attention  to  the 
mistress  of  the  house — Robby  had  been  his  lord ;  but 
during  her  illness  he  scarcely  quitted  her  door,  only 
occasionally  leaving  it  to  sniff  round  her  accustomed 
chair  in  the  dining-room,  and  trot  restlessly  about  the 
house. 

"You  mustn't  come  in,"  Millicent  admonished  him, 
when  he  had  followed  her  upstairs.  He  looked  wist- 
fully beyond  her  through  the  half -opened  door;  but 
he  wagged  an  obedient,  dejected  tail,  and  stretched 
himself  outside.  * 

Kew  came  home  early,  with  the  grapes  and  sundry 
pots  of  beef  essence  and  a  packet  of  super-excellent 
tea  in  his  bag.  His  strong  face  blenched  when  the 
door  was  opened  to  him  by  a  uniformed  nurse.  At 
the  same  moment  another  nurse  crossed  the  hall,  and 
passed  upstairs. 

"Is  it  as  bad  as  that?"  he  faltered. 

"It  is  diphtheria.  Dr.  Barnby  wired  for  us,  "the 
nurse  responded,  with  the  serious  cheerfulness  of  her 
profession. 

He  set  down  his  bag  in  the  hall,  and  hung  up  his 
hat.  He  went  upstairs,  with  an  unwonted  trembling 
at  the  knees.  The  house  smelt  strongly  of  disinfect- 
ants. Outside  her  door  a  wet  sheet  hung,  a  corner  of 
it  in  a  basin  of  fluid. 

"Good  God!"  he  said,  and  wiped  a  sudden  moisture 
from  his  face. 

Punch  rose  heavily  and  without  a  tail-wag  to  stare 
up  blankly  at  him.  "This  is  a  bad  business,  master," 
he  appeared  to  say. 

Mr.  Barling  having  replaced  his  handkerchief  and 
moistened  his  mouth,  lifted  the  sheet  and  went  in. 
She  was  lying  half  asleep,  breathing  rapidly.  Round 
her  eyes  were  leaden  shadows ;  beneath  them  two  hot 
fever  flushes.  The  dry  lids  lifted  in  a  gleam  of  recog- 
nition. She  advanced  a  thin  faint  hand  along  the 
counterpane  in  his  direction.  Then  she  lifted  it  in 


SICKNESS  AT  POPLAR  VILLA.  263 

sudden  apprehension,  warning  him  off.  She  turned 
her  face  away. 

"Go,  dear,"  she  cried,  hoarsely.  "Don't  come  near 
me,  Kew.  It  is  diphtheria.  " 

He  strode  across  to  her,  and  laid  a  strong,  compas- 
sionate hand  on  hers. 

"Do  you  think — ?"  he  said,  gravely,  and  stopped 
short. 

Their  eyes  met  in  one  supreme  moment.  Domestic 
differences  and  all  the  petty,  cares  and  trivialities 
dividing  them  as  by  a  prickly-hedge  were  thrust  aside. 

He  stooped  and  kissed  her. 

"Oh,  Kew, "  was  all  she  said,  but  she  could  scarcely 
have  said  more. 

Were  it  not  that  death  and  tragedy  arise  at  inter- 
vals to  rip  us  out  of  the  little  conventional  satchels 
into  which  custom  is  forever  stitching  us,  our  souls 
and  all  the  best  in  us  would  stifle. 

"Heavens!"  he  said,  later,  thinking  it  over  com- 
punctiously,  "I  hadn't  kissed  her  for  a  week.  I  am 
forgetting  how  to  be  a  man,  and  getting  to  be  a  mere 
confounded  stockbroker ! " 

He  mounted  the  nursery  stairs.  Before  a  door  was 
stretched  another  sheet. 

"Why,  there's  nothing  wrong  here,  is  there?"  he 
demanded. 

Millicent  sat  there  reading  to  the  children.  She 
shook  her  head. 

"I  thought  if  the  carbolic  sheet  would  keep  germs 
from  getting  out  of  the  sick-room, "  she  said,  practi- 
cally, "it  might  keep  them  from  getting  in  here.  And 
it  was  something  to  do.  " 

Ruby  trotted  to  him. 

"Yuby's  mammy's  ill,"  she  said,  shaking  her  curls. 
"Poo-er  Yuby.  Gif  her  a  penny.  " 

"I  say,  father!"  Robby  insisted,  "isn't  Punch  to 
come  away  from  mother's  door?  He  won't  even  go 
for  a  walk. ' ' 

"How  will  you  make  him?"  Mr.  Barling  queried. 

"Beat  him,"  Robby  retorted,  viciously;  "it's  sick- 
ening up  here  without  anything  to  do. " 


264  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"I  can  scarcely  keep  them  out  of  Mrs.  Barling's 
room,"  Millicent  said.  "Dr.  Barnby  thought  they 
ought  to  go  away.  " 

Mr.  Barling  shook  his  head.  ' '  It  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion." 


'MAKKLE— LUM."  265 


CHAPTER  XXX. 
"MAKKLE— LUM." 

"Lord  when  sought  we  out  the  children  that  did  languish? 

When  put  forth  the  hand  to  make  their  burdens  light? 
Lord,' we  wist  not  when  they  lay  on  beds  of  anguish, 

And  we  slept  throughout  the  watches  of  the  night" 

Barnby  looked  grave  next  morning.  "She  doesn't 
seem  to  have  an  ounce  of  stamina, "  he  told  the  nurse. 
He  came  three  times  that  day. 

Mrs.  Malcolm,  standing  by  the  window,  saw  him 
leave  the  second  time. 

"It  is  really  serious, "  she  reflected,  noting  his  face. 
She  watched  the  carriage  roll  out  of  the  drive.  "I 
liked  that  man  for  his  rudeness  yesterday,"  she  said, 
and  rang  the  bell. 

' '  Mrs.  Malcolm 's  compliments, ' '  she  instructed  the 
parlor-maid,  "and  she  would  like  to  know  how  Mrs. 
Kew- Barling  is  this  morning.  " 

The  answer  was  grave.  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  was  very 
ill.  There  were  two  nurses.  Mr.  Kew-Barling  had 
not  been  to  business  that  day.  The  doctor  was  to  call 
again. 

Mrs.  Malcolm  slipped  a  key  from  the  chatelaine  at 
her  waist. 

"Put  out  a  bottle  of  the  best  champagne,"  she 
said;  "and  tell  cook  to  make  a  mold  of  champagne- 
cream  as  soon  as  possible,  and  send  it  in  to  Poplar 
Villa  the  moment  it  is  ready.  " 

"That  little  girl  would  not  be  a  good  subject  for 
diphtheria, ' '  she  said,  with  three  uncomfortable 
creases  in  her  forehead.  "It  is  monstrous  not  to  send 
her  away." 

Not  long  after,  the  governess  and  children  with  the 
mail-cart  started  for  their  customary  walk.  They  wore 
a  very  dejected  aspect.  Ruby  was  without  her  gloves. 


266        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Perhaps  after  all  they  are  going  away, "  Mrs.  Mal- 
colm said.  She  felt  a  sudden  sense  of  shame.  "Well, 
it's  too  late  now,"  she  consoled  herself,  "but  it  would 
have  been  easy  enough  for  me  to  take  them.  If  I 
didn't  want  to  be  bothered,  there  is  the  whole  upper 
floor  they  could  have  had.  " 

But  the  doleful  little  train  returned  within  an  hour. 
Ruby  clutched  a  bunch  of  faded  dandelions  in  her 
hand,  her  rosy  face  set  soberly. 

Mrs.  Malcolm's  heart  gave  a  little  leap,  seeing  them 
return.  "They  must  have  relatives  or  somebody  to 
send  them  to  if  it  were  necessary.  I  suppose  it  isn  't. 
Why,  bless  the  child!  does  she  suppose  a  sick  woman 
could  stand  the  smell  of  dandelions;  for  I'll  be  bound 
that's  what  she  intends?" 

In  her  concern  she  tapped  the  window  pane,  and 
signaled.  •  Ruby,  looking  up,  assumed  her  fiercest 
frown,  and  made  three  violent  dabs  in  her  direction 
with  her  gloveless  fist. 

"The  impudent  minx!"  Mrs.  Malcolm  muttered, 
breathlessly.  ' '  Not  one  scrap  of  decent  feeling  in  her 
whole  body!  Did  anyone  ever  know  such  a  thing? 
And  with  her  mother  lying  seriously  ill.  She  wants 
slapping,  that 's  what  she  wants — badly. ' ' 

When  the  champagne-cream  had  been  dispatched 
with  Mrs.  Malcolm's  card  and  compliments,  news 
came  back  that  Mrs.  Barling  was  no  better,  that  there 
was  a  skin  like  wash-leather  in  her  throat,  and  that 
when  it  reached  a  certain  depth,  she  would  die  of 
suffocation. 

"Gracious!"  Mrs.  Malcolm  snorted  to  this  informa- 
tion of  Hodgson,  "do  you  suppose  I  don't  know  what 
diphtheria  is?" 

"They  say  Mr.  Kubarlin's  like  a  madman,  though 
he's  rather  a  silent  sort  of  gentleman  you  mightn't 
think  was  given  to  feeling.  And  she  such  a  sweet 
temper." 

In  the  small  hours  of  the  morning  Mrs.  Malcolm, 
lying  awake  amid  the  cozy  snugness  of  her  luxurious 
bedroom,  watching  the  glowing  asbestos  of  her  gas 
fire — for  a  slight  asthmatic  tendency  moved  her  to  take 


"MAKKLE— LUM."  267 

care  of  herself — and  consulting  from  time  to  time  the 
watch  beneath  her  pillow  to  learn  if  the  hour  for  her 
early  tea  were  still  far  off,  heard  a  quick  step  on  the 
gravel  walk  outside,  and  a  low  knocking  at  the  door  of 
Poplar  Villa.  She  threw  off  her  down  quilt  with  a 
sudden  sense  of  dread. 

That  poor  little  woman  was  worse !  She  knew  some- 
thing of  illness,  having  heard  much  from  her  husband, 
who  knew  nothing  else,  and  having  dipped  in  a  desul- 
tory but  interested  fashion  into  the  volumes  of  his 
library.  The  diphtheritic  membrane  was  spreading. 
The  doctor  had  been  summoned.  She  sat  up  in  bed, 
a  plump  round  person  in  a  night-cap,  with  an  embroid- 
ered flannel  jacket  round  her  shoulders.  On  the 
dressing-table  lay  a  portion  of  her  hair,  the  chestnut 
front  and  curls  with  old-fashioned  sidecombs  keeping 
them  in  place.  Before  the  fire  were  ranged  her  bath 
blanket  and  towels,  warming  for  her  toilette.  Beside 
her,  a  night-light  burned  in  a  basin  of  water,  and  on 
the  same  table  were  a  couple  of  clean  handkerchiefs 
with  eau-de-cologne  for  scenting  them,  a  decanter  of 
cordial  in  case  of  faintness,  and  a  bottle  of  sal-volatile 
with  spoon  and  glass,  for  administering  on  the  first 
asthmatic  threatening.  A  yellow-backed  novel,  an 
extinguished  lamp,  a  book-rest,  and  a  box  of  choco- 
lates on  a  table  at  the  other  side  of  her,  betrayed  the 
nature  of  the  cozy  hour  preceding  sleep. 

But  at  present  she  was  far  from  feeling  cozy.  The 
pleasant  face  beneath  her  nightcap  crumpled  peev- 
ishly. She  felt  a  little  grudge  against  her  neighbor 
for  the  disquiet  she  was  occasioning.  She  was  one 
of  those  persons  who  can  dismiss  distress  with  a 
seemly  sympathetic  phrase,  a  donation  and  an  easy 
conscience,  so  long  as  distress  is  in  the  next  street. 
Now,  only  the  brick  wall  of  a  speculative  builder  sep- 
arated her  from  the  tragedies  of  a  fellow-creature's 
pain — it  might  be  death-agony,  a  husband's  bereave- 
ment, children's  motherlessness,  the  snapped  cord  of 
a  young  life,  fraught  with  possibilities,  intertwisted 
and  knit  up  with  other  little  destinies  and  welfares. 
She  was  not  unimaginative,  and  there  returned  to  her 


268        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

recollections  of  a  patient,  harassed  face,  a  thin,  shabby 
figure,  driven  here  and  driven  there,  forever  occupied, 
and  anxious-browed  and  worn.  She  remembered  the 
thin,  busy  fingers  shaking  out  and  spreading  tiny 
shirts  behind  the  lattice-work.  "How  could  she  expect 
not  to  be  ill?  She  never  went  out  from  one  week's 
end  to  another,  and  if  she  did,  she  only  went  out 
shopping  or  to  church,"  she  protested,  irritably.  It 
occurred  to  her  then  that  her  neighbor  had  possibly 
no  time  amid  her  obligations,  nor  strength  left  over 
from  them,  for  walking.  "She  might  have  driven," 
she  maintained.  "They  seem  well  enough  off,  I  am 
sure,  and  she  always  wore  such  fashionable  bonnets. ' ' 

Mrs.  Malcolm  herself  drove  every  afternoon  from 
three  till  five  in  a  victoria  with  two  horses  hired  from 
a  livery-stable.  She  might  have  kept  horses  and  men 
servants  had  she  wished  it,  but  she  found  it  more  com- 
fortable to  hire. 

"Then  other  people  have  the  responsibility,"  she 
observed,  shrewdly. 

I  cannot  say,  certainly,  that  the  vacant  seat  beside 
her  in  the  carriage  assailed  her  conscience.  She  had 
lived  so  long  in  the  world  of  conventions  that  the  logic 
of  human  interdependence  had  ceased  to  assert  itself. 

She  got  up  and  crept  to  the  window. 

"I  shall  see  Barnby's  look  as  he  comes  out, "  she 
said. 

It  was  a  long  time  before  he  came,  but  he  came  at 
last.  He  turned  his  kind  face,  weather-beaten  by 
twenty  years '  hard  daily  rounds,  to  somebody  standing 
at  the  door,  nodding  good-by  gravely.  Then  he 
walked  hurriedly  down  the  drive. 

"There  is  to  be  a  consultation,  "  Mrs.  Malcolm  inter- 
preted, cleverly.  "Why,  good  gracious,  I  shall  be  ill! 
I  am  fairly  shivering. ' ' 

She  was  up  earlier  than  usual.  She  had  her  bonnet 
on,  and  stood  watching  for  the  doctor,  when  that 
worthy  man  arrived. 

"How  is  your  patient?"  she  submitted,  nodding 
toward  Poplar  Villa. 

"Bad,"  said  Barnby. 


"MAKKLE— LUM."  269 

"Will  she  get  over  it?" 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  It  is  a  question  loathed 
of  the  profession;  he  thought  Mrs.  Malcolm  should 
have  known  better  than  to  put  it. 

"Why  haven't  you  sent  away  the  children?" 

"Why  haven't  you  taken  them?"  he  retorted. 

Had  he  been  Mrs.  Malcolm's  own  doctor,  it  is  pos- 
sible he  could  not  have  afforded  to  put  so  blunt  a  ques- 
tion to  so  important  a  person.  But  as  matters  stood 
— Mrs.  Malcolm  proving  a  small  yearly  income  to  the 
fashionable  Fancourt,  he  put  it. 

"Me!"  she  protested,  "why,  I  don't  know  them 
from  Adam.  Haven't  they  any  friends?" 

"Very  few  infectious  people  have,"  he  said,  sardon- 
ically, raising  his  hat. 

"Good  gracious,  what  a  fool!"  Mrs.  Malcolm 
exclaimed,  after  his  retreating  homely  figure.  "Does 
he  think  I'm  afraid  of  getting  it?" 

An  hour  later  she  had  interviewed  Mr.  Barling,  and 
was  trudging  down  the  steps  of  Poplar  Villa  with 
Robby's  hand  in  one  of  hers,  and  Ruby's  in  the  other. 

1 '  I  don 't  want  to  come  with  you, ' '  Robby  said,  can- 
didly, "but  father  says  I  must."  He  disengaged  his 
hand.  "I  can  walk  without  leading,  thank  you,"  he 
added,  politely. 

"An"  I  can,"  Ruby  insisted,  vengefully,  dragging 
her  plump  fist  away. 

Mr.  Barling  had  required  all  the  persuasion  and 
severity  at  his  command  to  induce  her  to  go  with 
Mrs.  Malcolm  at  all. 

"Now,  what  in  the  wide  world  am  I  to  do  with  these 
two?"  their  captor  pondered,  when  she  had  convoyed 
them  as  far  as  the  dining-room.  "It  is  twenty  years 
since  I  had  anything  to  do  with  children ;  I  would  as 
soon  have  a  couple  of  tigers  to  amuse." 

"May  we  go  in  the  garden?"  Robby  questioned, 
when  he  had  grown  tired  of  sitting  on  the  edge  of  a 
chair,  with  his  sailor  hat  in  his  hand,  while  Mrs.  Mal- 
colm stared  helplessly  before  her. 

"You  won't  escape?"  she  urged,  suspiciously.  "You 
won't  climb  through  the  fence'" 


270        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

Robby  shook  his  head  in  some  disgust. 

"I  promised  father,"  he  said,  doggedly. 

She  let  them  out,  Robby  leading  Ruby  by  the  hand. 

They  walked  sedately  down  the  path.  He  quick- 
ened his  steps  as  he  approached  the  end  of  the  garden. 

"He  is  going,  after  all,"  the  watcher  said,  seeing 
him  make  for  the  flap  in  the  fence.  But  he  only 
stooped  and  examined  the  bolt,  after  which  he  raised 
his  head  with  the  air  of  a  person  who  has  settled  a 
problem  long  puzzling  him.  Then,  still  leading  Ruby, 
he  walked  to  a  bench.  He  lifted  her  up,  and  they 
remained  there,  motionless,  looking  before  them. 

"I  wonder  why  they  don't  play?"  Mrs.  Malcolm 
cogitated,  watching  them  perplexedly. 

After  about  ten  minutes,  Robby  got  down,  and, 
bidding  Ruby  stay,  came  back  into  the  house.  He 
stood  at  the  dining-room  door,  hat  in  hand. 

"Do  you  think  mother's  better  now?"  he  queried, 
gravely. 

"It  isn't  very  long,"  she  answered. 

"Isn't  it?"  he  said.     "I  thought  it  was." 

He  returned  dejectedly  to  his  bench.  After  an  inter- 
val of  some  minutes  more  he  came  to  the  dining-room 
door  with  the  same  question. 

"You  must  make  up  your  mind  to  stop  with  me  a 
little  while,"  she  said,  kindly.  "Mother  won't  get  up 
her  strength  all  in  a  day.  Can't  you  play  at  horses, 
or  something?" 

"No,  thank  you,"  he  said,  and,  disappearing, 
rejoined  Ruby  on  the  bench. 

"Good  gracious!  this  will  never  do,"  Mrs.  Malcolm 
reflected,  watching  their  small,  doleful,  well-behaved 
backs.  Every  now  and  again  they  turned  their  faces 
up  to  Poplar  Villa  solemnly.  "It  would  be  a  relief  to 
see  them  trample  down  the  beds,"  she  broke  out. 
Presently  she  walked  to  a  cupboard,  and  cut  two  large 
slices  of  cake. 

As  she  went  out  Robby  met  her.  He  slipped  a 
handkerchief  furtively  into  his  pocket. 

"Ruby's  crying,"  he  explained. 

She  trotted  helplessly  into  the  garden.     Ruby  sat 


"MAKKLE— LUM."  271 

there,  crying  pitifully,  big  tears  welling  from  her 
eyes,  round  which  the  dripping  lashes  stood  like  points 
of  misery.  Every  now  and  again  a  gigantic  sob  lifted 
the  yoke  of  her  frilled  pinafore,  as  though  it  purposed 
to  unroof  her  chest. 

One  small  fist,  dabbing  into  either  eye  alternately, 
attempted  to  cope  with  the  lachrymal  torrent.  Before 
the  bewildered  Mrs.  Malcolm — for  how,  in  all  con- 
science, was  one  to  deal  with  this  dejected  little  per- 
son?— had  time  to  collect  her  resources,  the  sufferer 
exclaimed,  brokenly: 

"Yuby — want  a — a  hamperchink ! " 

"Now,  what  in  the  world  is  that?"  her  hearer  mut- 
tered. 

"She  means  a  handkerchief,"  Robby  translated, 
with  some  contempt  for  mature  ignorance. 

"Oh!"  Mrs.  Malcolm  said,  and  produced  one.  She 
handed  it  to  Ruby. 

Ruby  lifted  it  and  sniffed  it. 

"Scent!"  she  remarked  laconically,  the  word  being 
cut  into  halves  by  a  terrific  sob.  She  trailed  it  round 
and  round  her  face  with  the  awkward  inaptitude  of  a 
person  who  has  never  dried  her  own  tears.  "You  do 
it,"  she  said,  returning  the  "hamperchink."  "Soap 
in  Yuby's  eyes." 

"Soap?"  Mrs.  Malcolm  echoed,  mopping  with  a  good 
deal  of  tenderness  the  chubby  undulations  Ruby's 
unskillfullness  had  left  undried. 

"I  suppose  it  smarts,"  Robby  explained.  "When 
you  cry  it's  salt,  and  salt  hurts." 

The  difficulty  was  that  Ruby,  having  started  crying, 
could  not  stop.  No  sooner  were  the  eyes  mopped  dry 
with  the  scented  handkerchief — whereat  the  victim 
took  parenthetic  sniffs  between  the  grief  paroxysms — 
than  another  violent  sob  would  pump  down  a  further 
deluge,  and  threaten  to  precipitate  her  from  the  bench. 

"Yuby's  goin'  to — to  burst,"  she  threatened,  sol- 
emnly, feeling  another  convulsion  imminent. 

"Do  you  think  she  might?"  Robby  demanded 
seriously.  "She's  awful  sorry." 

Mrs.  Malcolm  sat  down  hurriedly,  and  took  the  suf- 


272        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

ferer  on  her  knee  After  a  moment's  smart  resistance, 
the  child  nestled  her  miserable  head  against  the  wom- 
an's cushioned  bust. 

"Yuby's  mammy's  ill,"  she  sobbed,  confidingly,  with 
another  burst  of  lamentation.  "Poo-er  Yuby!" 

Mrs.  Malcolm's  heart  flowed  over,  feeling  the  warm 
cheek  nestle  to  her.  The  plastron  of  her  tightly-fitting 
corsage  was  swept  by  a  shower  of  curls.  A  small  chest 
heaved  against  her.  She  rocked  herself  this  way  and 
that,  jolting  her  back  with  a  jerky  rhythm  against  the 
wooden  bench.  She  broke  into  a  curious,  old-fash- 
ioned crooning.  Where  or  how  she  had  learned  it, 
she  could  not  for  the  life  of  her  have  said.  The  child 
stared  up  into  her  face  with  a  perplexed  wonder ;  but 
she  seemed  content,  and  presently  ceased  sobbing. 

"I  say,  is  that  singing?"  Robby  demanded,  in  an 
awed  undertone. 

It  was  somewhat  disquieting  to  see  Mrs.  Malcolm, 
whom  he  had  always  regarded  as  a  more  or  less  terri- 
ble person,  sit  there  jolting  to  and  fro  with  Ruby  in 
her  arms,  making  a  funny  little  gurgling  in  her  throat 
to  soothe  her.  Children  are  critical,  and  he  did  not 
consider  the  gurgling  melodious ;  but  it  made  him  feel 
strange  and  shy,  because  he  felt  it  was  kind,  and  it 
sounded  a  little  like  crying.  And  Ruby  fell  presently 
asleep. 

"I  hope  I  am  not  going  to  faint,"  Mrs.  Malcolm 
murmured  apprehensively  an  hour  later.  "I  have 
not  taken  my  wine,  and  I  feel  perfectly  cramped  sit- 
ting so  long  in  one  position. " 

Ruby  was  still  sleeping  peacefully.  Robby  was 
wandering  round  and  round  the  garden,  with  some 
show  of  feeling  at  home. 

But  she  did  not  faint,  and  Ruby  presently  waking 
and  demanding  ' '  Mammy, ' '  left  her  no  time  to  further 
contemplate  it. 

A  bright  idea  seizing  her,  she  sent  for  a  basket  and 
a  knife,  and  setting  the  child  on  her  feet  before  a  bed 
of  stocks,  "f'owers  for  mammy,"  she  said,  expressively. 

Ruby  did  not  need  a  second  invitation. 

After  luncheon,  which  both  Robby  and  Ruby  took 


"MAKKLE— LUM."  273 

with  more  awe  than  appetite,  being  oppressed  by 
company  manners,  the  carriage  was  announced. 

The  intelligence  that  they  were  to  drive  was  re- 
ceived with  speechless  transport.  While  Mrs.  Malcolm 
donned  her  bonnet  they  occupied  their  time  flattening 
their  faces  against  the  window-panes,  watching  the 
carriage  with  ecstatic  anticipation. 

"I  say  I'd  better  run  home  and  get  my  best  hat," 
Robby  submitted,  seeing  Mrs.  Malcolm  enter  equipped. 

She  shook  her  head,  smiling. 

"I  shouldn't  go  upstairs  or  bother  mother.  I  should 
only  ask  Parkins  if  she's  better." 

Mrs.  Malcolm  had  news  already.  It  had  no  element 
of  cheerfulness  to  speed  its  travel.  "That  hat  is  very 
nice,"  she  assured  him. 

"We  might  meet  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox,  you  know," 
he  persisted,  conscientiously. 

"Why,  what  does  it  matter?"  she  demanded,  peer- 
ing down  at  him. 

"Oh,  well,  you  mightn't  like  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox 
to  see  me  in  your  carriage  with  my  old  hat  on.  Mother 
wouldn't."  . 

She  remained  staring  down  at  him  inquiringly. 
Then  a  dawn  of  apprehension  broke  over  her  shrewd 
face. 

"Mrs.  Askew-Hickox — fiddlesticks!"  she  exclaimed, 
witheringly. 

"Ascox — fiddlesticks!"  Ruby  chuckled,  delighted. 
"Yuby  yide  in  a  tallidge  wiv  Makkle-lum!" 


18 


274  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 
MR.  SNAGG. 

Were  there  nothing  else 

For  which  to  praise  the  heavens,  but  only  love, 
Then  only  love  were  cause  enough  for  praise. 

It  had  never  occurred  to  Mr.  Kew-Barling  that  he 
was  in  love  with  his  wife.  He  was  fond  of  her,  of 
course.  Hers  and  the  children's  interests  were  his 
sole  concern.  That  was  merely  normal — natural.  For 
a  man  not  to  be  fond  of  his  wife,  and  not  to  make  her 
and  the  children  his  sole  concern,  was  a  state  of  things 
he  was  unable  to  enter  into.  He  had  chosen  a  pretty, 
interesting  girl,  and  having  a  little  means  and  a  good 
deal  of  confidence  in  his  ability  to  make  more,  had 
wooed,  won,  and  married  her,  without  doubt  or  mis- 
giving. And  she  had  come  to  be  all  that  he  needed 
in  woman.  It  was  perfectly  plain  sailing.  The  case 
was  simple  enough,  a  mere  matter  of  course  to  a 
wholesome-minded,  decent  Englishman.  Before  mar- 
riage a  man  permitted  himself  some  latitude  perhaps, 
but  afterward — well,  an  Englishman  was  not  a  French- 
man !  And  if  a  man  with  a  nice  wife  was  not  satisfied 
with  her,  he  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  himself. 

Now  Mr.  Kew-Barling  belonged  to  that  order  of  men 
who  take  things  too  much  for  granted,  and  so  he  took 
it  for  granted  that  he  was  not  better  suited  in  the 
matter  of  a  wife  than  were  all  the  other  men  he  knew. 
Yet  by  one  of  those  curious  chances,  which  occur 
rarely  enough  indeed  in  the  matrimonial  lottery,  Mr. 
Barling  had  been  lucky  enough  to  draw  the  right 
woman  for  wife.  And  while  he  was  sitting  in  judg- 
ment on  men  whose  ill  fate  had  joined  them  to  such 
of  the  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  women  out  of  a 
thousand  who  did  not  in  any  way  suit  them,  he  took 
it  for  granted  that  he  no  more  than  his  fellows  was 


MR.  SNAGG.  275 

singular  in  having  secured  the  thousandth,  who  was 
pre-eminently  his  affinity.  And  the  humdrum  and  dust 
arising  from  the  machinery  of  the  Cult  of  Appearances 
had  further  obscured  from  him  the  agreeable  truth. 

Had  he  looked  with  seeing  eyes,  the  rare  beauty,  fine 
health  and  intelligence  of  his  elder  children  might 
have  enlightened  him  on  the  subject,  for  only  the 
blend  of  natures  sympathetic  produces  noble  offspring. 
But  he  was  not  speculative,  and  he  took  the  uncouth- 
ness  and  disease  of  mind  and  body  of  a  number  of  his 
neighbors'  children  as  a  matter  of  course,  something 
possibly  to  do  with  original  sin,  and  not,  as  these  were 
absolutely  the  natural  consequences  of  loveless,  ill- 
assorted  unions.  The  harmony  of  perfectness  pro- 
ceedeth  not  from  warring  nor  from  elements  incom- 
patible. Nature  has  this  revenge  upon  us,  that  if  we 
profane  her  and  marry  without  love,  she  can  afflict  us 
with  inferior  and  evil-tempered  offspring.  That  is  the 
fons  et  origo  of  all  degeneration. 

However,  Mr.  Barling  took  things,  as  I  have  said, 
too  much  for  granted,  and  was,  for  the  first  time,  con- 
scious of  the  closeness  wherewith  his  and  Molly's  souls 
were  knit  when  he  felt  the  tug  and  tear  at  his  soul  at 
sight  of  that  white  sheet  before  her  door. 

"Good  Lord,"  he  said,  through  dry  lips,  reviewing 
things  in  the  solitary  desolation  of  the  dining-room, 
"and  I  made  her  miserable  last  night  because  there 
was  no  anchovy  sauce  with  the  soles.  Life  is  a  pretty 
mean  sort  of  misunderstanding. ' ' 

Mr.  Kew-Barling  was  essentially  manly,  and  looking 
back  into  his  memory  he  did  not  like  to  find  himself 
figuring  there  as  a  domestic  bugbear.  He  remem- 
bered the  quick  flash  of  appeal  wherewith  her  eyes 
had  greeted  his  daily  incoming.  His  humor,  ill  or 
good,  had  been  the  barometer  of  her  content.  Well, 
he  had  grown  into  a  surly-tempered  brute  of  late — a 
day  in  the  city  wasn't  elevating  work — but  she  ought 
to  have  known  he  had  no  other  thought  beyond  her 
and  the  children. 

"It's  all  this  cursed  villa  and  straining  after  show," 
he  muttered.  "It's  an  everlasting  incubus  on  a  man's 


276         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

mind  and  spirits.     When  we  lived  at  Clapham  I  had  a 
decent  temper,  and  we* couldn't  have  been  happier." 

"I  don't  think  I  care  about  a  handsome  funeral, 
dear,"  Mrs.  Barling  faltered  once,  out  of  along  silence 
he  had  been  hoping  was  sleep.  "Just  quiet  and  nice, 
but  not  expensive ;  and  perhaps  somebody  will  send  a 
wreath.  Mrs.  Malcolm  might,  for  one,  as  she  has 
been  so  kind. ' ' 

"Are  you  going  to  leave  us,  Molly?"  he  demanded, 
quietly — "me  and  the  children.  How  do  you  suppose 
we  can  get  along  without  you?" 

"I  don't  think  I  could  face  it  again,  dear,"  she  said. 

"It  has  been  uphill  work,  and  very — very  disap- 
pointing. " 

"If — when  you  get  well,"  he  insisted,  firmly,  "we 
will  go  back  to  Clapham.  This  house  has  been  too 
much  for  you.  We  were  happy  before  we  came  here, 
and  we  will  be  happy  again. " 

She  seemed  to  lose  her  breath  a  moment.  Then  she 
lifted  a  feverish  bright  face  from  the  pillow. 

"Kew,"  she  whispered,  hoarsely,  "the  dear  little 
home  with  the  rockery  and  the  ferns  we  planted  with 
our  own  hands,  and  the  walls  we  papered  and  painted, 
and  the  room  where  Robby  was  born. ' ' 

"Would  you  like  it,  darling?"  He  clasped  her  hot 
wasted  fingers  in  his  large  palms.  "You  could  face 
that  with  me  and  the  children?" 

"We  were  so  happy  there,"  she  said,  brokenly. 

After  a  little  thought  she  added,  with  a  half  sob : 

"And  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox  isn't  likely  to  call  now, 
Kew." 

"No;  curse  her!"  he  cried,  violently. 

Mrs.  Barling  smiled. 

' '  I  think  I  can  sleep, ' '  she  said. 


After  all  there  was  no  funeral,  handsome  or  mod- 
est, from  the  gate  of  Poplar  Villa.  Mrs.  Kew- Barling, 
having  hovered  three  whole  days  and  nights  about  the 


MR.  SNAGG.  277 

doors  of  death,  now  sighing  wearily  and  insensibly 
drifting  within  them  as  they  slipped  ajar  for  her;  now 
being  snatched  forth,  reluctant,  and  wailing  to'  be  left 
at  peace,  by  firm  skillful  hands  arid  kind  ones. 

"Oh,  let  me  alone,"  she  cried,  petulantly,  once  or 
twice.  "Leave  me  to  sleep. 

But  a  determined  person  in  a  frilled  cap  stood  above 
her,  administering  beef-juices,  brandies,  and  medi- 
cines, while  the  microbes  in  her  blood  fed,  multiplied, 
and  fought  out  the  question  of  fitness  or  unfitness  for 
survival,  and  eventually  the  "ayes"  had  it.  Out  of 
the  wreck  remaining  from  her  crusade  with  Appear- 
ances there  was  fibre  enough  of  the  original  healthy 
Molly  to  fight  down  the  "noes,"  and  Mrs.  Kew-Barl- 
ing  crept  slowly  and  laboriously  from  the  shadow  of 
the  portals,  shuddering  now  to  think  upon  the  loneli- 
ness that  must  have  been  hers  on  the  other  side. 

"And  so  Mrs.  Malcolm  took  the  children?"  she  mur- 
mured, overcome. 

She  was  apprised  that  at  that  self-same  moment 
Robby  and  Ruby  were  to  be  seen  from  the  window, 
sitting  like  potentates  before  two  prancing  horses,  a 
warm  rug  covering  their  restless  legs,  while  they 
impatiently  awaited  Mrs.  Malcolm's  descent. 

"Is  Robby  wearing  his  best  hat?"  she  questioned, 
anxiously,  the  master-passion  stirring. 

' '  He  looks  very  nice  and  smart, ' '  Millicent  responded, 
her  eyes  above  the  blind.  ' '  I  believe  they  have  been 
curling  his  hair. ' ' 

"Never,"  Mrs.  Barling  laughed  faintly.  "Do  you 
really  think  they  have?  Do  you  really  believe  Mrs. 
Malcolm  would  notice  that  pretty  kink  in  it." 

She  laughed  again  like  a  child.  Her  eyes  filled  with 
tears  of  proud  delight.  If  only  she  could  take  one 
peep! 

"And  Ruby — how  does  Ruby  look?" 

"As  rosy  as  can  be.  She  wears  her  green  Dutch 
bonnet,  and  her  curls  come  out  under  it  like  gold.  Oh, 
you  should  see  them.  You  would  think  they  had 
driven  in  carriages  all  their  lives. ' ' 


278        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"I  do  hope  they  are  behaving  nicely,"  Mrs.  Barling 
said. 

"Now,  then,  they  are  off.  Mrs.  Malcolm  comes 
down  beaming.  Robby  lifts  the  rug  for  her,  the  foot- 
man springs  up  on  the  box — away  they  go. ' ' 

"I  hear  them,"  their  mother  cried,  excitedly.  "I 
can  hear  the  wheels  roll  over  the  gravel. ' '  She  fell 
back  on  her  pillows. 

"And  now  they're  gone,"  she  said,  the  smile  dying 
out  of  her  face. 

"Not  before  they  kissed  their  hands  up  to  your  win- 
dow," Millicent  insisted.  "They  turned  at  the  gate 
and  kissed  their  hands. ' ' 

"By  themselves?"  she  questioned,  tensely. 

"Oh,  yes.  Mrs.  Malcolm  did  not  tell  them;  I  am 
sure  it  was  their  own  idea. ' ' 

' '  The  dears !  the  dears !' ' 


For  some  days  Robby  had  been  worried  in  his  mind. 
He  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr.  Snagg,  and 
remarks  let  fall  by  that  gnarled,  sour-tempered  person 
had  caused  him  much  uneasiness.  Mr.  Snagg,  on 
finding  evidence  of  children's  footmarks  in  the  garden, 
and  Ruby's  handiwork  about  the  beds,  had  sought  the 
mistress  of  the  house. 

"There's  children  'ere!"  he  said,  as  a  man  might 
say,  "It  is  no  good  you  pretending  you  haven't  got 
murderers  concealed  about  the  premises,  because  I 
happen  to  know  better. ' ' 

"Well,"  said  Mrs.  Malcolm,  with  a  bolder  front  than 
the  quaking  in  the  region  of  her  corsets  warranted,  "I 
don't  see  that  it  is  any  business  of  yours,  Snagg." 

"Oh,  don't  you?"  said  Snagg,  as  snaggily  as  a  man 
might  speak.  ,  "Well,  per'aps  it  ain't.  When  I  comes 
to  think  on  it,  I'm  sure  it  ain't.  It  don't  make  no 
odds  to  me  where  I  goes,  nor  it  ain't  my  business 
whether  I  goes  there  or  whether  I  don't.  It's  their 
business — the  people  as  has  been  used  to  'ave  their 
place  done  up  prop'ly,  and  finds  the  difference  when 
it  ain't." 


MR.  SNAGG.  279 

Snagg  had  so  often  previously  hurled  this  threat  in 
more  or  less  circumlocutory  fashion,  that  Mrs.  Mal- 
colm was  less  moved  by  it  than  if  it  had  been  a  novelty. 

"Well,"  she  responded,  with  dignity,  "you  know 
your  own  business  best,  I  suppose." 

Snagg  seemed  crestfallen.  She  had  never  before 
replied  to  him  in  this  most  casual  of  fashions.  He 
took  out  a  handkerchief,  which  he  was  wont  to  use 
indiscriminately  for  mopping  his  face  or  for  cleaning 
the  knives  of  the  lawn-mower.  Now  he  wiped  his  face 
with  it,  and  I  should  be  sorry  to  have  to  state,  with 
any  degree  of  exactness,  which  of  the  two  came  out 
worse  from  the  encounter. 

He  turned  to  leave  the  dining-room.  He  never  felt 
altogether  at  ease  in  the  dining-room.  There  was  a 
mirror  there  which  showed  him  a  full-length  portrait 
of  himself,  surrounded  by  a  gilt  frame.  It  gave  him 
the  sense  of  a  dog  that  is  laughed  at. 

He  turned  to  leave  discomfited.  He  would  have  it 
out  later  in  the  garden. 

"You  look  tired,"  Mrs.  Malcolm  s£id,  kindly.  "If 
you  like  to  go  to  the  kitchen,  cook  will  give  you  some 
meat  and  ale." 

He  turned  again. 

"All  I  ask  is  this,"  he  said,  more  placably,  "is  the 
children  a  permanentcy  or  on'y  temp'ry?" 

"Temporary,"  Mrs.  Malcolm  said. 

"Then  I'll  try  and  manage  to  put  up  with  it,"  he 
decided,  magnanimously,  "and  see  if  I  can't  eat  a  bit 
o'  that  there  meat." 

But  to  Robby,  who  with  interested  eyes  and  ears 
followed  him  about  the  garden,  asking  questions, 
noting,  observing,  criticising,  he  did  nothing  but  rail. 

•''Look  'ere,"  he  said  once,  throwing  down  his  spade 
to  the  point  of  exasperation,  "are  you  my  master  or 
am  I  yours?" 

"You're  not  mine,"  Robby  said,  after  a  moment's 
reflection,  "because  you  wear  corduroys  and  have 
dirty  hands. ' ' 

"Did  you  ever  see  a  man  as  gardened  in  white  kid 
gloves?"  demanded  Snagg. 


280        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"No,"  said  Robby.     "He  wouldn't  be  such  a  fool." 

"No  more  I  shouldn't,  as  to  shovel  garden  mold 
and  stuff  in  clean  hands, ' '  Snagg  retorted. 

"I  suppose  you  wash  them  when  you  goto  bed," 
Robby  inquired,  with  a  respectful  thirst  for  informa- 
tion. 

"Never  you  mind  my  bed,"  Snagg  said,  surlily, 
"becos  it  ain't  none  o'  your  business.  And  per'aps  I 
ain't  got  ne'er  a  bed." 

"Oh,  but,"  Robby  said,  contemptuously,  despising 
so  pitiful  an  evasion,  "of  course  you  have;  everybody 
has  a  bed  to  sleep  in." 

"No,  they  don't,"  said  Snagg.  "Tramps  don't, 
and  persons  in  jails  don't." 

"Where  do  they  sleep,  then?" 

"Why,  on  planks." 

"I  should  think  it  would  hurt  a  good  deal,"  Robby 
deliberated  thoughtfully,  passing  a  meditative  hand 
over  the  bony  ridges  of  his  slim  back. 

"  'Urt,"  Snagg  echoed,  witheringly;  "wot  else  d' 
you  think  they  fellys  in  Parlyment  wants?" 

"I  suppose  you've  tried  it?"  Robby  submitted. 

Snagg  regarded  him  for  the  space  of  some  moments 
with  an  evil  eye.  Such  a  remark  meriting  no  answer, 
he  vouchsafed  none.  He  resumed  his  shoveling  with 
a  sardonic  muttering. 

"Why  do  you  put  the  spade  in  like  that?"  Robby 
demanded,  presently. 

"Why,  becos  it's  the  on'y  way  to  put  the  spade  in." 

"You  could  do  it  like  this" — he  suited  the  action  to 
the  word  by  way  of  a  rake  he  picked  up — "or  like 
this,  or  like  this." 

"Oh,  I  dessay  I  could,"  Snagg  said,  derisively; 
"but  are  you  doin'  this  'ere  job,  or  am  I?" 

"Why,  you  are,  of  course." 

"Oh,  I  am,  am  I?  Then  per'aps  you'll  let  me  do  it 
my  own  way. ' ' 

"Why,  of  course,"  Robby  conceded.  "I  only 
thought  perhaps  I  could  show  you  an  easier  one. ' ' 

"If  thirty  odd  year  ain't  showed  me  nothink  differ- 
ent, I  lay  you  won't, "  Snagg  rasped. 


MR.  SNAGG.  281 

"  Have  you  got  any  little  boys  and  girls,  Mr.  Snagg?" 
Robby  ventured  after  a  pause. 

"No,"  said  Snagg,  "and  ef  I  had  I  shouldn't  have. 
I'd  'a  wrung  their  necks  for  'em  the  very  minit  they 
was  born. ' ' 

Robby  looked  shocked. 

"Well,  you'd  have  been  hanged, "  he  said.  "Or  is 
a  man  allowed  to  murder  his  own  children?" 

"He  ain't,"  said  Snagg,  "worse  luck,  tho'  they 
felly s  in  Parlyment  is  always  preachin'  about  it's  bein' 
a  free  country. " 

"But  how  does  Mrs.  Snagg  like  not  having  any  chil- 
dren?" 

'Mrs.  Snagg?" 

'Yes;  your  wife,  you  know." 
'Who  said  I'd  got  any  wife?" 
'Why,  you  have,  haven't  you?" 
'No,  I'm  blest  ef  I  'ave,"  Snagg  blurted,  savagely. 
'I  suppose  it's  that  makes  you  so  cross  all  the  time, " 
mused  Robert,  philosophically.     "But  if  you  had  and 
had  children  you  wouldn't  like  to  be  a  murderer?" 

"Oh,  wouldn't  I,"  Snagg  said,  licking  his  lips  blood- 
thirstily.  "You  set  a  child  o'  mine  a  askin'  me  this 
and  a  askin'  me  that  till  my  ears  was  wore  out  wi' 
'earin'  wy  is  roses  red  and  vi'lets  blue,  and  the  sky 
up  'igh  and  the  earth  down  low,  and  things  like  that 
there  isn't  any  answer  to,  and  I'd  chop  his  head  off — 
cheerful." 

Robby  looked  thoughtful. 

"I  suppose  I  have  been  asking  you  a  good  many 
questions,"  he  said,  apprehending.  Then,  "I  think 
I'll  go  and  see  how  Mrs.  Malcolm's  getting  on,"  he 
added,  and  went  up  to  the  house  abashed. 

"There  now,  ef  ever  I  see  such  a  amount  o'  'uffi- 
ness  in  as  small  a  chap,"  Snagg  grumbled  after  him. 
"I  couldn't  'a  put  it  distanter  or  rounder  about,  and 
then  he  up  and  he  takes  'isself  off  as  tho'  I'd  shook 
'im.  There's  no  gettin'  on  wi'  some  folk." 

Another  day  Snagg  stood  railing  about  sloppiness. 

"It's  just  contrariness,"  he  said.  "It's  as  good 
ground  as  any  in  the  garden,  but  you've  no  sooner  got 


282         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

the  plants  to  blow  than  they  rots  off  at  their  roots. 
It'll  be  dry  for  a  week,  like  the  other  beds,  and  then 
all  at  once  you  gets  up  in  the  mornin'  and  finds  it  that 
sloppy  you  could  punch  somebody's  'ead. " 

"Where  is  it  sloppy?"  queried  Robby,  constrain- 
edly. 

"Why,  'ere — right  up  agin  the  fence.  Pounds  an' 
pounds  we've  spent  puttin'  stuff  in,  and  all  to  no  use. " 

"Is  it  dry  now?"  Robby  said. 

"Yes,  it's  been  dry  all  the  week,  becos  I  said  I 
wouldn't  waste  nothink  more  on  it,  and  then  if  I  was 
to  trust  to  it,  it  'ud  jest  go  and  get  as  sloppy  agin  as 
you  like. ' ' 

"Is  it  dry  now?"  Robby  inquired,  next  morning. 
He  was  out  of  breath  as  from  some  exceptional  exer- 
tion. His  hands  and  shirt-cuffs  were  unaccountably 
moist. 

"Dry?"  said  Snagg.  "I  should  think  it  ain't.  The 
Slough  o'  Dee's  Pond  ain't  in  it.  " 

"Well,  I  shouldn't  put  any  flowers  in  for  a  day  or 
two  if  I  were  you,"  Robby  submitted,  casually. 

"Oh,  shouldn't  you?"  repeated  Snagg,  sardonically. 

"Well,  I  should,  and  that's  all  the  difference  between 
us.  At  twelve  o'clock  this  blessed  mornin'  there's  a 
barrar  o'  things  a-comin' — becos  Mrs.  Malcolm,  she's 
that  obstinit,  she  says  try  this  and  try  that,  as  if  she 
expected  there  was  some  kind  o'  plants  as  liked  to  live 
in  slop  like  grewel — and  them  things  'as  got  to  go  in, 
sloppy  or  no  sloppy. ' ' 

Robert  sought  Mrs.  Malcolm.  She  was  setting  out 
chocolates  and  crystalized  fruits  in  tiny  glasses  for  the 
children's  dinner.  Ruby  sat  up  at  the  table  on  her 
high  chair,  which  had  been  passed  above  the  fence,  her 
elbows  on  the  table,  her  chin  on  her  hands,  her  eyes 
on  the  preparations. 

"I  won't  give  you  one  now,  dear,  because  it  would 
spoil  your  appetite  for  lunch, ' '  Mrs.  Malcolm  said, 
explanatorily. 

Had  Ruby  understood  the  saying,  she  might  have 
urged  that  her  appetite  for  lunch  was  no  such  flimsy 
affair  as  to  be  spoiled  by  a  trifle ;  but  she  only  under- 


MR.  SNAGG.  283 

stood  that  she  was  not  about  to  get  a  dainty  then,'  and, 
having  been  taught  manners,  tried  to  look  content. 

"And  after  lunch  we'll  drive  round  by  the  river  and 
see  the  boats  on  the  water.  How  will  that  do,  Robby?" 

Robby  stood  dumb.  At  that  moment  the  devil  came 
to  him.  You  can  tell  it  in  the  afternoon  when  you 
have  seen  the  river  and  the  boats,  the  devil  said.  And 
Robby  listened. 

But  his  conscience  was  not  proof  against  Mrs.  Mal- 
colm's friendly  face,  smiling  above  the  little  glasses  of 
delight  she  was  preparing. 

' '  I  came  in  to  tell  you  something, ' '  he  said,  man- 
fully, "and  perhaps  when  I've  told  you,  you'll  never 
take  me  for  a  drive  again. ' ' 

"Why,  what  have  you  been  doing?  You  have  never 
been  home,  have  you?" 

"I  only  slipped  through  the  fence,  and  got  some 
cans  of  water  from  the  outside  tap.  I  didn't  go  into 
the  house." 

"Oh,  well,  then  it  does  not  matter.  But  it  is  safer 
for  you  not  to  go  even  into  the  garden." 

"That  isn't  it,"  Robby  urged,  stoutly.  "Look  here, 
Mrs.  Malcolm,  you  know  that  sloppy  bit  down  your 
garden,  where  the  flowers  rot  in  their  roots,  and 
you've  spent  pounds  and  pounds  putting  in  new 
ones?" 

"Well?"  said  Mrs.  Malcolm. 

"Well,  "  said  Robby,  "that  was  all  my  doing.  "  He 
explained  the  ingenuities  which  had  aimed  at  being  a 
fountain,  and  had  ended  in  being  nothing  more  than 
a  mud-pit.  "I  didn't  mean  right  from  the  beginning 
to  lead  it  into  your  garden — really  I  didn't,  Mrs.  Mal- 
colm— only,  when  you  put  spikes  on  the  fence  so  I 
couldn't  ride  I  thought  of  it,"  he  concluded,  in  abase- 
ment. « 

Mrs.  Malcolm  took  the  intelligence  lightly  enough. 
She  never  concerned  herself  about  things  that  had 
happened  yesterday.  Life  is  made  up  of  two  kinds  of 
circumstances,  she  was  in  the  habit  of  philosophizing, 
things  you  can  help  and  things  you  can't;  prevent  the 
things  you  can  help,  dismiss  the  things  you  can't. 


284        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

She  was  not  learned,  and  her  brain  had  never  been 
properly  turned  over;  but  she  had  arrived  at  deduc- 
tions so  profound  as  these,  and,  what  is  more,  she 
practiced  that  she  preached. 

"Well,"  she  remarked,  when  Robby  had  finished, 
"it's  a  comfort  to  think  you  have  corked  up  that  spout 
so  that  the  new  plants  will  have  a  chance  of  growing. 
I  always  thought  that  sloppiness  very  suspicious." 

"It  wasn't  a  nice  thing  of  me  to  do,  Mrs.  Malcolm," 
Robby  said,  inviting  censure.  It  hurt  his  sense  of 
justice  that  he  was  not  whipped  or  scolded,  as  he  knew 
he  merited. 

"Well,  I  can't  say  it  was  a  nice  thing  to  do,"  Mrs. 
Malcolm  allowed,  "considering  all  those  poor  plants; 
but  it  sounds  very  clever." 

Robby,  in  relating,  had  taken  fire  again  at  the 
source  of  old  ambitions,  and  had  explained  very  cir- 
cumstantially his  well-pondered  plan  of  operations. 

"One  led  into  the  other  by  the  neck  of  a  beer  bot- 
tle," he  said;  "and  the  other  led  into  the  other  by 
a  piece  of  the  garden  hose.  And  so  it  mightn't  get 
blocked  up  with  stones  or  things  I  put  the  thing  with 
holes  in  it  out  of  my  soap-dish  right  in  front  of  it. 
Those  things  are  no  good  in  soap-dishes,  because, 
even  if  you  remember  to  take  the  soap  out  of  the 
water,  you're  sure  not  to  think  of  putting  it  back  in 
the  dish.  I  puttied  it  in  tightly — there  was  a  man 
mending  windows  at  the  time,  and  I  should  think  I 
used  a  pound  of  putty — and  I  lined  all  the  pits  with 
pieces  of  slate,  and  broken  saucers,  and  a  few  old 
plates,  and  snails  jammed  close  together  when  I 
hadn't  any  more  platters.  And  you  should  have  seen 
the  water  bubble  out  of  the  teapot  spout  when  the 
hole  at  the  other  end  was  full;  it  wasn't  as  high  as  it 
ought  to  have  been,  but  it  bubbled  finely." 

"Oh,  I  can  imagine  it,"  Mrs.  Malcolm  said,  remem- 
bering past  sloppiness. 

"I  can't  think  why  it  didn't  foam  up  high,"  he 
observed,  reflectively. 

"Why,  there's  something  about  water  reaching  its 
own  level, ' '  she  returned. 


MR.  SNAGG.  285 

"Well,  I  held  the  can  very  high  in  the  air,"  he  said. 

"I  don't  think  I  should  mention  it  to  Snagg,"  she 
urged,  when  the  story  was  finished.  "He  has  had  a 
great  deal  of  bother  with  that  bed. " 

"I  don't  think  I  will,"  Robby  said.  "He  talks  about 
murdering  people  like — like  anything. ' ' 

"Oh,"  Mrs.  Malcolm  said,  lightly,  "I  don't  know 
about  murdering. ' ' 


Ruby  had  one  or  two  encounters  with  Snagg.  Once, 
when  she  was  dressed  for  driving,  she  was  moved  to 
descend  the  rustic  stairway  leading  to  the  lawn,  and 
impart  the  proud  intelligence  to  him : 

"Yuby  doin'  out  in  a  tallidge  wif  Makkle-lum, "  she 
said,  shyly,  and  from  some  distance  off. 

Snagg  was  not  of  an  aspect  to  invite  approach. 

"Oh,  I  dessay!"  he  retorted,  in  the  withering  tone 
of  a  person  prepared  for  any  depth  of  depravity. 

She  stood  there  some  minutes,  discomfited  by  his 
lack  of  cordiality,  but  trying  the  effect  of  an  artillery 
of  glances  from  beneath  the  ruche  of  her  Dutch  bon- 
net— looks  which  experience  had  shown  her  to  be  irre- 
sistible. But  Snagg  was  gnarled  and  glance-proof. 
She  withdrew  perplexed. 

"Dirty  man!"  she  commented  to  Makkle-lum,  who 
came  to  find  her.  She  screwed  her  pink  nose  into 
criss-cross  lines  of  eloquent  disgust.  "Beas'ly  man!" 
she  persisted,  stamping  a  small  foot  on  the  gravel. 

The  "beas  'ly  man ' '  detected  her  one  morning  tramp- 
ing the  center  flower-bed,  with  a  basket  on  one  arm 
and  a  knife  in  her  hand.  Snagg 's  temper  was  as  short 
as  it  was  surly.  Almost  before  he  knew  what  he  was 
about,  he  had  seized  her  by  the  shoulder,  dragged  her 
from  among  the  blossoms,  and  slapped  her  smartly 
on  the  arm. 

She  remained  a  moment  speechless.  Then  she 
threw  down  her  knife  and  basket,  assumed  her  most 
belligerent  front,  and,  puffing  her  cheeks  out,  darted 
upon  him.  She  kicked  his  shins,  grabbed  portions  of 


286        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

his  clothing  in  her  chubby  palms,  and  pounded  him 
with  her  fists. 

Snagg-  was  quite  alarmed.  He  feared  lest  she  should 
have  a  fit  of  apoplexy.  Her  round  flushed  cheeks  were 
swollen  out,  her  eyes  seemed  starting  from  their  sock- 
ets, her  face  was  violently  contorted,  every  muscle 
was  in  motion. 

"I  say,"  he  expostulated,  "you  just  drop  this,  will 
you?" 

But  Ruby  had  not  had  her  fill.  She  drew  off  at  inter- 
vals for  purposes  of  breathing,  but  even  then  stood 
working  her  hands  like  claws  before  her  contorted 
purple  countenance  after  a  fashion  most  alarming  to 
such  as  did  not  know  this  for  her  normal  fighting  man- 
ner. 

"Come,  now,"  said  Snagg,  "you'll  make  yerself  ill, 
you  know,  ef  you  goes  on  like  this.  Calm  yourself  a 
bit,  or  you  '11  be  bustin '  a  blood-vessle. ' ' 

But  Ruby  made  another  onslaught. 

"I  say,  little  missie, "  he  remonstrated,  "it'll  do 
you  no  good  to  bust  a  blood-vessle,  you  know,  and  it 
'ud  on'y  make  yer  mar  wuss  ef  she  was  to  'ear  uv  it. 
You'd  best  keep  quiet.  " 

But  Ruby  capitulated  no  iota  till  her  fury  was  spent. 
Then  she  retreated  to  a  distance  and  stood  eyeing  him, 
panting. 

"There  then!"  she  said,  as  one  who  said,  "Now, 
you  have  had  a  taste  of  my  prowess. " 

"I  should  think  it  is  'there  then,'  "  Snagg  remarked, 
relieved  to  find  her  still  entire.  "Why,  you  look  like 
a  prize  Halderman." 

But  Ruby  held  no  further  parley ;  she  stalked  into 
the  house,  gasping. 

"No  more  beers  and  beefs  for  you,  Snagg,"  that 
worthy  soliloquized,  direfully.  "You're  not  a-goin' 
to  be  allowed  to  do  yer  dooty  and  perteckt  yer 
employer's  property  never  any  more.  You're  a-goin' 
to  git  the  sack,  you  are,  jest  for  slappin'  a  little  impi- 
dent  female  in  a  bonnet.  No  chance  she  won't  tell. 
Wot  else  did  nater  make  'er  into  a  female  an'  give  'er 
a  tongue  for?" 


MR.  SNAGG.  287 

But  Ruby  never  told.  Perhaps  she  was  not  partic- 
ularly proud  of  the  indignity  of  being  slapped  by 
Snagg.  Perhaps  she  thought  the  indignity  had  been 
wiped  out  by  her  summary  vengeance.  Snagg  thought 
otherwise.  He  was  afflicted  by  mean  estimates  of 
things  and  persons. 

' '  She 's  cunninger  than  anyone  might  give  her  credit 
for, ' '  he  said,  slyly.  ' '  She  knowed,  if  she  told  the 
missis,  the  missis  'ud  say  nateral,  'An'  what  did  Snagg 
slap  you  for,  eh?'  " 

But  this  suspected  policy  on  her  part  inspired  him 
with  respect  for  her.  Ever  afterward  he  addressed 
her  deferentially,  and  styled  her  "little  missie. " 


288  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 
UNDERSTANDING  ONE  ANOTHER. 

"For  your  Cupid,  you  have  clipped  him, 
Rouged  and  patched  him,  nipped  and  snipped  him, 
And  with  chape au  bras  equipped  him, 
Belle  Marquise! 

Just  to  arm  you  through  your  wife-time, 
And  the  languors  of  your  life-time, 

Belle  Marquise!" 

When  Vaux  returned  to  Roldermere  with  Millicent's 
note  in  his  pocket  he  was  sorely  vexed. 

"I  might  have  gone  back  an  engaged  man,"  he 
reflected;  "she  was  just  in  the  mood  to  accept  a  chap, 
and  she  doesn't  pretend  not  to  like  me,  and  I'd  have 
made  her  a  decent  sort  of  husband.  Now,  who  knows 
what  may  not  happen?  Hickox  even  may  be  chippin' 
in — or  anything." 

He  ordered  the  dog-cart,  and  drove  over  to  The 
Towers.  Lady  Alicia  was  at  home,  the  butler  said. 

As  he  was  ushered  through  a  gay  ante-room,  bril- 
liant with  mirrors  and  painted  butterflies,  he  heard  a 
man's  voice  and  light  laughter. 

"Hallo,  Vaux!"  Alicia  greeted  him,  fluttering  up 
from  among  the  draperies  of  a  pink  cushioned  lounge, 
"you're  just  in  time  to  settle  something.  Waldon  and 
I  were  talking  over  old  times.  You  were  at  those 
tableaux,  weren't  you?" 

"Which?"  said  Vaux,  shaking  hands  with  Waldon. 
Waldon  looked  sulky.  A  man  who  was  talking  with 
Alicia  had  a  way  of  looking  sulky  when  another  man 
came  in.  I  suppose  Alicia  showed  to  best  advantage 
ttte-h-tete. 

"Why,  the  last  ones,  of  course,  when  I  was  Fabiola 
and  everybody  thought  I  had  mistaken  my  vocation  in 
not  getting  me  to  a  nunnery. ' ' 


UNDERSTANDING  ONE  ANOTHER.  289 

"How  long  did  they  think  it?"  Vaux  said,  lightly; 
"till  you  rose  out  of  the  sea,  as  what-d'  you-call-it?" 

Waldon  laughed. 

Alicia  pretended  to  blush.  There  were  very  few  of 
Alicia's  con-sceurs  who  blushed,  or  affected  to.  Alicia 
had  the  advantage  of  them  that  way.  Moreover,  she 
had  charming  eyelashes. 

"You  bad  man!"  she  cried,  canting  her  cheek.  "I 
had  to  be  properly  dressed." 

'  'Why,  of  course  you  had, ' '  assented  Waldon,  laugh- 
ing again.  His  sense  of  humor  lay  in  one  direction. 
The  present  conversation  trended  thitherward. 

"I'm  fearfully  bored,"  Alicia  resumed.  "Let  us 
get  up  more  tableaux.  I  have  a  grand  idea  for  a 
dress."  Waldo  laughed  a  third  time. 

"What  would  the  Lord  Chamberlain  think  about 
it?"  he  submitted,  archly.  He  was  enjoying  himself 
this  afternoon.  Alicia  was  the  sort  of  woman  for  a 
man  to  feel  at  ease  with,  one  who  possessed,  pre-emi- 
nently, the  feminine  complement  of  that  in  him  which 
he  mistook  for  humor. 

"Lady  Alicia  might — "  Vaux  began,  in  an  effective 
drawl  characteristic  of  him,  and  one  which,  siibtle 
and  playful,  condoned  a  good  deal  of  latitude  of  speech. 

But  he  stopped  short.  A  recollection  of  Millicent 
came  to  him,  honest,  clear-eyed,  wholesome,  as  she 
had  lifted  her  cheek  to  his  kiss. 

He  lounged  over  to  the  window.  Why  the  deuce 
did  Alicia  scent  her  rooms  like  an  opera  dancer's? 

Waldon  and  Lady  Alicia  were  waiting.  When  Vaux 
assumed  that  tone,  they  knew  by  experience  some- 
thing worth  hearing — in  one  way — was  to  be  expected. 

'  'Lady  Alicia  might — ' '  that  lady  said,  alluringly. 

'  'It  just  occurred  to  me, "  Vaux  said,  falling  into  his 
normal  tone,  "that  you'd  be  interested  to  hear  I  came 
across  Millicent  Rivers  while  I  was  in  Kent. " 

"Oh,  I  am  interested,"  Alicia  vouchsafed ;  "but — it 
would  have  waited. ' ' 

'  'The  raciest  news  would  wait,*  while  one  discussed 
what  our  charming  hostess  might  do  in  the  matter  of 
tableaux, ' '  insinuated  Waldon. 

19 


290         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"And  how  does  Millicent  like  governessing?" 

"She  says  she  likes  it.  " 

Alicia  laughed.     "But  looks  as  if  she  doesn't." 

"She  doesn't  look  well.  She's  got  quite  thin,  and  I 
should  think  it  must  be  a  rippin'  dull  sort  o'  life, 
though  they're  uncommon  pretty  children." 

"Oh,  I  daresay  she  likes  it,"  Alicia  said.  "She  has 
rather  peculiar  views,  and  I  suppose  it's  in  the  blood." 

"Is  that  Miss  Rivers,  who  was  stopping  with  the 
Kershaws — with  Lady  Kershaw?  Why,  I  thought  she 
had  a  pile  of  money, ' '  Waldon  interposed. 

"Oh,  it  wasn't  at  all  a  pile,"  Alicia  insisted.  "It 
was  only  a  few  thousands  a  year. ' ' 

"And  she's  lost  it,  and  had  to  turn  out  and  get  her 
living?  Hard  lines." 

"I  believe  she  is  just  as  happy,"  his  hostess  main- 
tained, sharply. 

"Oh,  but  she  hasn't  lost  it,"  Vaux  corrected.  "She 
is  only  governessin'  for  fun.  She  calls  it  seein'  life." 

Waldo  laughed.  "She  may  be  seeing  life,"  he  said; 
"but  how  do  you  know  she's  governessing?" 

"Did  she  tell  you  she  hasn't  lost  her  money?"  Alicia 
inquired,  shaking  up  a  cushion. 

Vaux  nodded. 

"It's  just  a  fad, "  he  said. 

Alicia's  charming  eyebrows  approximated  by  the 
fraction  of  an  inch.  She  leveled  her  eyes  on  Vaux. 
In  those  eyes  perturbation  struggled  with  indecision. 
Indecision  lost  the  day. 

"Millicent  is  generally  truthful,"  she  said,  delib- 
erately; "I  don't  see  why  she  should  be  ashamed  of 
having  lost  her  money." 

"She  has  lost  it,  then?'1  demanded  Waldon. 

"Every  penny  of  it,"  Alicia  answered.  She  looked 
keenly  at  Vaux  while  she  said  it.  It  is  possible  she 
had  detected  his  interest  in  Millicent;  and,  in  the 
event  of  that  interest  maturing  to  a  right,  awkward 
questions — if  nothing  worse — might  arise.  But  Vaux 
had  his  features  in  control.  Beneath  his  nonchalance 
you  would  scarcely  have  suspected  he  was  suffering 
one  of  the  worst  moments  he  had  known.  Dyspepsia 


UNDERSTANDING  ONE  ANOTHER.  291 

undermines  the  substance  of  a  man's  faith,  and  Vaux's 
faith  in  the  integrity  of  his  fellows  was  pitted  with 
doubt.  And  even  Millicent,  he  was  thinking  ruefully. 
Well,  he  had  had  a  lucky  escape.  It  amazed  him  to 
find  that  he  was  more  hurt  by  her  deception  than 
happy  to  have  escaped. 

"I  must  have  mistaken  Miss  Rivers'  meaning,"  he 
said,  casually.  "The  kids  were  shriekin',  so  that  we 
could  scarcely  hear  ourselves  speak,"  he  added,  with 
the  histrionic  touch  to  conceal  mendacity. 

They  lounged  into  other  topics,  and  Vaux,  with  the 
memory  of  honest,  clear-eyed,  wholesome  Millicent 
bedraggled  in  his  mind,  relapsed  into  his  drawl,  gave 
Alicia  opportunity  for  play  of  eyelashes,  and  rekindled 
Waldon's  sense  of  humor,  which  had  waned  sorely 
during  the  preceding  conversation. 

Badinage  and  laughter  flowed,  till  suddenly  the  door 
opened. 

"Have  you  a  cup  of  tea  for  me,  Alicia?"  Kershaw 
questioned,  entering.  He  shook  hands  with  his  guests. 

"Why,  Vaux,  I  thought  you  were  away?" 

' '  I  was, ' '  Vaux  answered ;  ' '  only  got  back  yesterday. 
Come  to  pay  my  respects. ' ' 

He  glanced  somewhat  shamefacedly  toward  his  host. 

Curse  it!  why  couldn't  women  be  different?  He 
always  liked  Kershaw,  and  he  wouldn't  care  for  chaps 
to  talk  to  his  wife  in  the  free-and-easy  vein  they  had 
been  using.  Millicent,  for  instance — where  Millicent 
was  there  was  always  plenty  of  fun  going,  but  it  was 
honest,  wholesome  fun  that  lifted  a  man's  spirits, 
not  the  stale  fun  of  double  entendre  and  playing  at  ball 
with  people's  reputations.  Curse  it!  why  couldn't 
women  be  different?  If  only  they  would  be,  things 
would  be  very  much  easier  for  men ! 

"I  can't  congratulate  you  on  your  looks,"  Kershaw 
observed,  receiving  his  tea  at  his  wife's  hands.  "You 
don't  often  look  so  glum.  " 

"That  is  what  we  have  been  telling  him  ever  since 
he  came  in,"  asserted  Waldon,  with  an  arch  glance 
upon  the  others.  "We  haven't  been  able  to  get  any- 
thing but  solemn  looks  and  sermons  out  of  him." 


292         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

Kershaw  sat  down  to  drink  his  tea.  He  listened 
with  some  constraint  to  Waldon's  explanation.  Pos- 
sibly he  did  not  like  his  air  and  his  easy  application  of 
the  pronoun  "we." 

Kershaw  looked  no  rapturous  Benedict.  Indeed,  he 
had  lost  that  look  before  his  bridal  was  a  fortnight  old. 
Had  he  been  less  blindly  in  love,  it  would  not  have 
taken  him  even  a  fortnight  to  sound  Alicia's  shallows. 
At  the  end  of  that  time,  however,  .he  remarked  at 
breakfast : 

1 '  If  you  are  tired  of  ruralizing,  dear,  we  will  run  up 
to  town  for  a  few  days  before  going  home." 

"So  you  find  it  dull,"  she  said;  "you  sad  fellow  to 
confess  it — in  my  society.  Now,  I  never  pretended  to 
an  agricultural  taint. ' ' 

So  they  ran  up  to  town,  and  Alicia  renewed  her  life 
in  shops  and  theatres  and  toilettes. 

And  Kershaw  awoke  to  the  fact  that  he  and  she  had 
not  a  taste  in  common.  Even  his  passion  failed  to  fuse 
them.  Alicia  knew  nothing  more  of  sex  than  sense, 
which  means  that  even  the  most  rudimentary  elements 
of  love  were  missing  in  her.  When  he  kissed  her  pink, 
perfect  chefek,  he  kissed  pink,  perfect  flesh,  but  not 
the  woman  he  had  dreamed  of.  She  satisfied  neither 
his  mind  nor  his  manhood.  He  had  thought  as  many 
another  has  thought — marriage  will  give  her  that  she 
lacks ;  but  marriage  only  plumbed  her  shallows.  She 
gave  him  no  more,  as  his  mother  had  predicted,  than 
any  little  painted  creature  could  have  given  him,  and 
not  so  much  as  many  a  little  painted  creature  might. 
Hers  was  no  nature  whereat  a  man  might  slake  a 
great  passion.  Nineteenth-century  man,  when  he  is 
man,  is  a  many-sided  creature,  and  every  plane  of  his 
development  seeks  satisfaction.  So  Kershaw  came  back 
from  his  honeymooon,  grim-faoed  and  hungry,  with  a 
man's  hunger  for  a  complete  woman — a  woman  who 
shall  sheathe  not  one  but  all  the  restless  forces  of  his 
nature  with  her  balm  of  womanhood. 

He  returned  to  his  study  to  make  pen-and-paper 
women  wherewith  to  blunt  the  edge  of  higher  hunger. 
That  is  the  satisfaction  Heaven  has  given  the  artist — 


UNDERSTANDING  ONE  ANOTHER.  293 

that  he  whose  need  is  greater  than  his  fellow's  shall 
fill  the  voids  and  deprivations  of  his  life  with  creatures 
of  his  mind.  Hunger,  whether  material  or  mental,  is 
the  spur  of  work.  Art  is  but  love — the  creative  impulse 
— on  the  mental  plane.  "Let  me, "  the  artist  cries, 
out  of  the  desolation  of  unmatedness,  "satisfy  my 
loneliness  of  soul  with  Ideals;  let  me  deliver  me  of 
this  sweet  child  of  mine  wherewith  I  am  in  travail ;  let 
me  commit  to  paper  or  to  canvas  this  dear  man  or 
woman  that  my  soul  has  conceived."  And  from  the 
pain  and  yearning  of  his  hunger  the  artist  has  raised 
men  and  women,  at  whose  image  the  whole  world  may 
slake  its  need  for  higher  things  when  they,  too,  catch 
this  stress  of  hunger  for  that  their  lives  lack. 

Out  of  the  needs  and  unsatisfactions  of  his  honey- 
moon, Kershaw  created  such  a  dream  of  a  fair  woman 
that  he  sat  in  his  study  adorning  her,  and  dwelling  on 
her  lovely  excellences  till  she  blossomed  into  an  epic 
poem,  upon  which  he  labored  night  and  day  for  weeks 
at  the  end  whereof  she  proved  ready  for  publication. 

"The  finest  thing  he  has  done,"  was  agreed  on  all 
hands.  Friends,  critics,  even  foes,  were  warmed  to 
admiration. 

"How  he  worships  his  wife!"  they  said. 

"He  needed  to  be  in  love  to  perfect  his  muse." 

"Strange, "  others  commented,  "he  gives  his  heroine 
all  the  virtues  conspicuously  lacking  in  Alicia. " 

"He  does  not  even  make  her  fair,"  some  other  said. 

"I  suppose  he  did  not  like  to  paint  a  portrait  and 
show  himself  posing  at  her  feet!" 

"Well,  he  is  ridiculously  blind  if  he  thinks  that  is  a 
portrait  of  Alicia.  Still,  it  is  a  very  pretty  story, 
though  I  must  say  I  prefer  poetry  that  rhymes. ' ' 

"You  can  tell  it  is  meant  for  his  wife,  because  the 
girl  marries  a  poor  man. " 

"Well,  Alicia  seems  comfortably  off." 

"Oh,  he  makes  something  by  his  books.  She  tells 
me  he  made  twenty  thousand  pounds  by  this  one. " 

"Twenty  thousand!  Good  gracious!  what  a  sum 
for  a  book.  But  that  explains  things.  I  never  under- 
stood before  why  she  wasted  two  thoughts  on  him." 


294          WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"He's  a  splendid-looking  man  though  there  seems  to 
be  more  in  him  than  one  quite  fathoms ;  and  he  looks 
too  manly  for  a  poet. ' ' 

"Oh,  I  don't  deny  that  he  is  attractive.  But  attract- 
iveness doesn't  buy  diamonds,  and  there  are  attractive 
men  who  can ! ' ' 

Kershaw's  book  was  a  distinct  success,  but  scarcely 
so  successful  as  Alicia  was  represented  to  have  said. 
Possibly  he  made  two  instead  of  twenty  thousand 
pounds  by  it. 

"You're  neglecting  me  shockingly,"  Alicia  had 
pouted,  with  a  charming  moue.  "You  spend  all  your 
time  with  that  creature  Beryl.  And  why  don't  you 
make  her  with  hair  my  color?" 

It  was  a  very  charming  color,  and  just  then,  crowned 
with  a  hat  which  was  but  a  knot  of  poppies,  would 
have  been  eloquent  of  cornfields  and  rusticity,  had  it 
been  less  elaborately  coiffed. 

"Perhaps  it  wouldn't  suit  her  character,"  he  said. 

"Are  you  not  putting  one  of  my  qualities  into  her?" 

She  glanced  over  his  shoulder  at  her  reflection  in 
the  glass. 

"You  are  very  charming,"  he  returned,  smiling; 
"but  I  am  afraid  you  would  feel  terribly  bored  in  an 
epic  poem." 

"You  goose,"  she  said,  "I  should  not  really  be  in 
it.  How  silly  you  are.  And  why  write  epic  poems?" 

"For  bread  and  butter,  dear,"  he  said. 

"Well,  that  is  a  reason,"  she  assented,  seriously. 

So  he  finished  his  poem.  But  Beryl  had  not  one  of 
Alicia's  qualities.  And  the  world  said  he  must  be  a 
blind  fool. 

It  was  a  great  relief  to  Alicia  when  he  transferred 
his  attentions  to  Beryl.  Alicia  was  wont  to  say  that 
she  could  not  imagine  a  more  terrible  fate  than  to 
have  one's  husband  in  love  with  one.  "You  might  as 
well  be  tied  up  to  a  wall,  or  wear  an  iron  collar,"  she 
said,  graphically. 

Fortunately,  Nature  had  endowed  her  with  a  tem- 
perament to  effectually  preclude  a  fate  so  untoward. 

"And  fortunately,  because  Richard  is  so  very  eccen- 


UNDERSTANDING  ONE  ANOTHER.  295 

trie  in  some  of  his  views,"  she  confided  to  a  friend, 
"fortunately  Richard  is  of  a  kind  to  romance  about 
poem-women,  because  I  really  believe,  dear,  he  might 
even  have  some  ridiculous  old-fashioned  notion  about 
being-  faithful  to  me.  It  would  be  a  ghastly  bore. ' ' 

Perhaps  she  gave  him  credit  for  more  virtue  than 
he  possessed.  I  doubt  if  any  man  of  Kershaw's  judg- 
ment— for  in  all  but  one  act  of  his  life  he  had  judg- 
ment— would  resist  temptation  for  no  more  cogent 
reason  than  that  of  remaining  faithful  to  Alicia! 

"I  don't  like  Waldon,"  Kershaw  said  that  afternoon 
when  their  visitors  had  left. 

"Don't  you?"  Alicia  returned,  airily.  "I  can't  see 
anything  to  object  to  in  him." 

"His  free-and-easy  way  is  objectionable." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

' '  He  shares  it  with  nine  men  out  of  ten, ' '  she  said. 

"No;  Waldon  is  different.  His  is  the  free-and- 
easiness  of  a  stage-manager." 

"That  is  what  he  would  have  loved  to  be,"  she 
laughed.  "Oh,  by  the  by,  he  is  getting  up  some  more 
tableaux. ' ' 

"Did  he  ask  you  to  take  part?" 

"Clever  boy!     How  did  you  guess?" 

"You  refused?" 

"No,  I  accepted." 

"I  should  like  you  to  cancel  that  promise,  Alicia." 

"Yes,  dear,"  Alicia  said.  "I  imagined  you  would 
when  I  made  it." 

"Shall  I  write,  or  will  you?"  he  submitted,  quietly. 

"Neither  of  us,"  she  returned  as  quietly. 

"Are  you  serious?" 

"Absolutely." 

"What  does  it  mean?" 

"It  means  that  we  have  reached  that  stage  in  our 
matrimonial  development  when  we  are  going  to  under- 
stand one  another,  my  Richard. ' ' 

"Well,  let  us  be  careful  that  we  do  not  misunder- 
stand," he  said,  after  a  pause.  "But  I  don't  think  we 
need  have  any  difficulty.  Waldon  wishes  you  to  pose 
in  his  tableaux,  I  especially  wish  you  not  to. ' ' 


296         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"And  I  especially  wish  to,"  she  retorted.  "That  is 
two  against  one!  The  ayes  have  it."  There  was 
silence;  then  she  began  again.  "Look  here,  Richard; 
do  not  let  us  quarrel.  I  loathe  quarreling.  But  you 
must  remember  I  made  a  great  sacrifice  in  marrying 
you. ' ' 

She  paused  interrogatively. 

"I  don't  deny  it,"  he  said. 

"Well,  the  least  you  can  do  is  not  to  interfere  with 
me.  I  always  warned  you  that  I  am  no  saint.  You 
must  let  me  take  my  amusements  as  I  can.  Our 
income  restricts  them,  goodness  knows.  But  I  must 
go  my  own  way.  I  could  not  tolerate  being  coerced.  " 

"I  think  we  are  unnecessarily  enlarging  on  the 
situation,  dear,"  he  urged.  "It  is  a  simple  enough 
matter.  Two  persons  with  decent  consideration  for 
one  another — I  don't  speak  of  stronger  feeling — can 
easily  adjust  their  views.  It  only  means  a  little  giving 
in  one  to  the  other. ' ' 

Alicia  shook  her  head  emphatically. 

"Giving  in  isn't  so  easy,"  she  said,  "when  you 
really  care  about  things.  I'm  not  a  good  person,  and 
so  I  care  about  things.  That's  the  chief  difference 
between  saints  and  sinners,  saints  are  persons  without 
any  strong  inclinations. ' ' 

Kersh aw  laughed.  "The  definition  is  smart,"  he 
said,  "so  let  it  pass." 

"Now,  I,  being  a  sinner,  have  a  very  strong  inclina- 
tion to  appear  in  the  tableaux — you,  being  a  saint, 
have  a  weak  inclination  that  I  shall  not. ' ' 

"No,"  he  said.  "You  must  count  me  a  sinner  if 
you  gauge  my  sinfulness  by  the  strength  of  that  deter- 
mination." 

Alicia  yawned. 

"I'm  tired,"  she  said.  "I  have  been  chattering  all 
the  afternoon.  And  I  mean  to  appear  in  the  tableaux, 
Richard." 

"Is  my  wish  nothing?" 

"Nothing  but  nonsense,  you  goose,"  she  protested. 
"I  can't  think  how  you  can  have  been  a  soldier  and 
still  remain  so  prudish.  If  I  appear  as  a  Turkish  sul- 


UNDERSTANDING  ONE  ANOTHER.  297 

tana  and  cover  my  face  with  a  veil,  I  suppose  your 
sense  of  propriety  would  be  satisfied?" 

"I  don't  like  Waldon  and  his  set.  You  would  be 
obliged  to  be  everlastingly  there  for  rehearsals." 

"Why,  of  course  I  should.  That  is  half  the  fun. 
What  a  spoil-sport  you  are.  Do  you  think  I  can't  take 
care  of  myself?" 

"I  don't  want  you  to  find  it  necessary.  You  are 
very  young,  dear, ' '  he  said,  tenderly. 

"Perhaps  that's  why  I  am  up-to-date,"  she  retali- 
ated. "Really,  Richard,  you  are  too  old-fashioned.  I 
believe  you  think  women  need  protecting  as  they  did 
when  there  were  ogres  and  giants  about.  You  have 
such  queer  notions.  Why,  it  is  the  very  riskiness  of 
things  that  make  them  racy.  ' 

Kershaw  stared  at  her.     Then  he  persisted  firmly : 

"Well,  I  don't  mean  you  to  take  part." 

Alicia  bit  her  lips.  Her  eyes  sparkled  angrily.  She 
fidgeted  with  the  chiffons  of  her  tea-jacket. 

"I  said  we  were  going  to  understand  one  another," 
she  broke  out,  "and  you  may  as  well  know  once  for 
all  that  I  don't  intend  to  be  coerced.  The  only  way 
you  can  make  my  life  tolerable  is  not  to  interfere  with 
me." 

"Isn't  this  a  little  vulgar?"  he  said.  "Isn't  your 
life  tolerable?  I  thought  you  were  having  a  pleasant 
enough  time. ' ' 

"Well,  I  must,"  she  said.  "I  am  not  complaining. 
Only  I  must  have  pleasure  and  excitement.  I  can't 
be  domestic  and  humdrum.  It  isn't  in  me,  and  you 
can't  alter  my  character." 

"I  know  that,"  he  returned,  gravely.  "I  want  you 
to  be  happy  in  your  own  way.  I  only  ask  you  to  con- 
sider me  in  a  few  things." 

"Well,  it  must  be  things  I  don't  care  much  about," 
she  said,  more  placably.  "It  only  makes  misery  when 
people  want  everybody  else  to  be  like  themselves. 
You're  fond  of  libraries  and  books.  I'm  fond  of  life 
and  pleasure.  You  think  me  a  criminal — I  think 
you — ' ' 

"What?"  he  smiled. 


298         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Well,  I  don't  mean  quite  a  fool,  Dick,"  she  said, 
seriously;  "but  we  can't  have  been  meant  to  shut  our- 
selves away  in  studies  droning  over  books,  when  there 
are  life,  and  excitement,  and  balls,  and  pleasures 
going." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  confess  they  do  not  tempt  me 
very  much.  I  am  a  good  deal  older  than  you,  and  I 
don't  expect  you  to  like  the  things  I  care  for.  Neither  do 
I  ask  you  to  drone  over  books  or  to  give  up  parties. 
We  have  been  married  four  months  and  this  is  the 
first  time  I  have  crossed  you. ' ' 

"Oh,  you  have  looked  as  if  you  didn't  like  things 
several  times,"  she  pouted.  "Yesterday,  for  instance, 
Fitzimmons  wasn't  really  going  to  kiss  rne.  And  even 
if  he  had,  I've  known  him  for  years.  You  are  so 
prudish." 

"Maybe,"  he  said,  flushing  savagely;  "but  I  would 
have  put  him  in  the  horse-pond.  The  boys  of  to-day 
are  a  deuced  deal  too  rapid." 

Alicia  laughed  maliciously. 

"Oh,  Richard,  I  should  have  loved  to  see  it.  He 
is  such  a  dandy ;  and  then  I  should  have  known  if  that 
curled  fringe  he  wears  is  really  his.  Molly  Cholmon- 
dely  says  it  isn't.  Oh,  I  must  kiss  him  next  time. 
He  is  to  be  in  the  tableaux,  you  know." 

' '  But  you  are  not. ' ' 

"Pardon  me,  Bluebeard." 

"It  is  no  use,  Alicia.     I  have  made  up  my  mind. " 

"Why,  so  have  I,"  she  said,  meeting  his  looks  reso- 
lutely. 

"Don't  be  foolish,  dear,"  he  protested.  "We  must 
not  come  to  open  rupture." 

"Then,  you  must  give  in.  I  shall  not.  I  am  deter- 
mined on  it." 

There  was  no  mistaking  her  meaning.  All  the 
charming  mobility  was  gone  out  of  her  face.  The 
straight,  fine  lines  of  it  were  very  straight.  He  went 
over  to  her.  He  put  an  arm  about  her. 

"Don't,  dear,"  he  said.  "Do  not  let  us  quarrel. 
Don't  let  it  come  to  a  trial  of  strength." 

She  jerked  herself  peevishly  away. 


UNDERSTANDING  ONE  ANOTHER.  299 

"What  nonsense  it  is,"  she  cried.  "You  know  you 
can't  chain  me  to  a  wall.  You  can't  put  me  in  the 
stocks,  or  take  my  clothes  away.  How  can  you  pre- 
vent me  from  going  if  I  choose  to  go?  You  can't 
restrain  me  by  brute  force." 

He  stood  looking  at  her. 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  can't." 

"Well,  I  shall  go.  I  meant  right  from  the  begin- 
ning to  go.  If  you  went  down  on  your  knees  to  me, 
it  wouldn't  make  any  difference.  I  intend  always  to 
have  my  own  way.  So  we  have  merely  been  wasting 
breath,  discussing  all  this  time  a  point  I  never  had  the 
slightest  intention  of  yielding.  It  is  so  senseless, 
Richard.  Wives  are  not  going  to  be  bullied.  What 
can  men  do?  They  can  only  fume  and  sulk." 

"Well,  we  won't  waste  further  breath,"  he  said, 
coldly.  "I  had  not  supposed  things  stood  like  this 
between  us,  or  I  should  not  have  entered  upon  the 
matter. ' ' 

He  turned,  and  quitted  the  room.  He  stood  at  the 
window  of  his  study,  smiling  sternly. 

"Heavens!"  he  said,  bitterly.  "What  a  pitiful  fool 
I've  been.  I  was  no  boy  to  make  a  grand  passion  of 
an  instinct  that  didn't  last  a  week." 


300  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 
A  REHEARSAL. 

Men  cease  to  interest  us  when  we  find  their  limitations.  The 
only  sin  is  limitation.  As  soon  as  you  once  come  up  with  a  man's 
limitations,  it  is  all  over  with  him. 

"I  will  drive  with  you,"  he  said,  when  the  day  for 
the-«first  rehearsal  arrived. 

"In  the  capacity  of  friend  or  dragon?"  she  inquired, 
acidly. 

"Definitions  are  odious,"  was  all  he  vouchsafed. 

Since  their  quarrel,  which  was  their  first,  but  suffi- 
ciently decisive  in  that  it  left  no  room  for  doubt  as  to 
Alicia's  future  policy,  there  had  be'en  no  apparent 
restraint  in  their  communications.  Alicia  had  met 
him  smiling  and  complacent,  as  one  who  had  asserted 
her  position,  and  having  done  so,  anticipates  no  fur- 
ther difficulty.  That  the  position  she  had  asserted 
was  an  ungracious  one,  and  one  subversive  absolutely 
of  emotional  relations,  did  not  seem  to  affect  her.  She 
prided  herself  on  her  common  sense,  and  one  of  the 
first  duties  of  common  sense,  as  she  regarded  it,  was 
to  dispose  effectually  and  finally  of  false  conceptions. 
Richard  had  better  realize,  as  soon  as  possible,  that  he 
must  leave  her  free  to  go  her  way.  She  had  sacrificed 
everything  in  marrying  him.  She  was  independent 
of  him  so  far  as  money  was  concerned — she  had  the 
grace  to  flush  red-hot  to  her  finger-tips  at  all  this 
consideration  involved — it  was  far  better  for  him 
to  understand  exactly  how  they  stood  and  how  she 
meant  to  continue.  She  rather  admired  herself 
for  that  she  considered  candid  dealing.  They  had 
been  married  four  months,  and  he  must  expect 
a  bit  of  occasional  plain-speaking.  One  could  not 
go  on  forever  loving  and  doving.  Not  that  there 
had  been  a  great  deal  of  this.  With  all  he  had  pro- 


A  REHEARSAL.  301 

fessed,  he  appeared  to  her  distinctly  cold.  After  all, 
he  had  taken  it  well.  He  looked  a  shade  graver,  per- 
haps, than  usual,  and  was  more  silent;  but  he  would 
soon  get  over  that,  and  it  would  put  a  stop  to  further 
possibilities  of  dissension  that  she  had  stated  her  case 
clearly. 

Alicia  must  not  be  judged  too  harshly.  She 
belonged  to  an  order  of  woman  who  has  sensibilities 
but  no  sympathies.  Sympathy  argues  imagination  to 
project  the  mind  into  another's  mind,  and  detect  the 
hurt  there.  And  Alicia  had  no  imagination.  Like 
many  another  of  her  sex  she  was  mainly  instinctive, 
and  the  instinct  mainly  self-preservative.  Her  brain 
needed  stretching — educational  stretching — to  enable 
it  to  compass  something  outside  the  horizon  of  self. 

"Even  Richard  can  be  managed,"  she  reflected, 
triumphantly,  for  it  was  a  point  whereon  she  had  not 
been  confident.  She  watched  him  from  behind  the 
cover  of  her  pink  lace  veil  as  they  drove.  He  had  so 
strong  and  fine  and  clever  a  face  that  she  exulted, 
reflecting  that  she  had  proved  herself  master. 

But  if  by  management  and  mastery  she  meant  bend- 
ing his  convictions  one  iota,  she  was  flattering  herself 
unduly. 

And  Richard — what  was  Richard  thinking,  sitting 
beside  the  pink-and-lilac  toilette,  which  for  this  after- 
noon was  his  wife?  For  the  toilette  of  the  afternoon 
was  the  focus  of  Alicia's  consciousness,  and  in  a  fashion 
her  determining  rule  of  conduct. 

Sometimes  even  she  was  maidenly  when  her  modiste 
had  clothed  her  in  dove  color,  and  had  set  a  rustic- 
seeming  hat — in  reality  an  apotheosis  of  modishness — 
upon  her  corn-colored  hair.  For  the  talent  Alicia  had 
lay  in  the  direction  of  art,  and  the  theme  her  artistic 
faculty  set  was  self.  It  would  have  jarred  her  sense  of 
the  harmony  of  things  to  be  bizarre  and  rapid  when 
she  wore  gray.  Gray  was  a  cool,  soft,  modest  color, 
requiring  quiet  movement,  subdued  speech,  and 
restrained  expression  for  its  perfect  rendering.  She 
was  chameleon-like,  only  that  the  shame  she  assumed 
in  her  dress  and  virtues  was  not  spontaneous,  but  that 


302        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

which  Paris  was  wearing  or  would  wear — for  Alicia 
was  previous  in  her  modes.  So  dress  served  her  where 
conscience  might  have  failed  her,  for  there  were  things 
it  would  be  in  the  worst  taste  to  do  or  to  say  in  gowns 
of  a  particular  tint.  It  was  in  gray  and  white  that 
Kershaw  had  lost  his  heart  and  head  to  her.  This  was 
his  pure  dove-hued  woman,  with  white  linings  to  her 
soul  and  maiden  womanhood.  This  was  the  true 
Alicia,  not  she  of  the  scarlet  and  black  and  steel  of  yes- 
terday, the  witch  who  demoralized  weak,  weak  man,  and 
hypnotized  his  higher  senses  by  a  repertory  of  smart 
talk,  small  laughter  and  slim  ankles. 

Very  early  in  life,  Kershaw  had  disentangled  his 
manhood  from  the  snare  of  sense ;  and  the  black  and 
scarlet  Alicia,  though  she  bewildered,  did  not  take 
him  captive.  Variety  and  complexity — the  zest  of  life 
— are  played  on  higher  chords.  Black  and  scarlet 
women  are  so  very  much  alike,  they  are  so  black  and 
scarlet,  they  drop  their  lashes,  flash  their  eyes,  and 
play  their  time-worn,  repainted,  pathetically  flimsy 
little  tricks  again  and  again,  with  a  monotony  of  imita- 
tion and  limitation  which  insures  their  palling.  In  a 
world  of  sky-blues  and  sea-blues  and  forest-blues;  of 
sky-greens  and  sea-greens  and  forest-greens;  of  cloud- 
golds  and  sun-golds  and  star-golds;  of  moon-silvers 
river- silvers,  snow-silvers;  of  the  white  that  lies  in  the 
hawthorne,  the  cup  of  the  lily,  and  the  high  sky;  of 
the  blue-green  that  nestles  in  the  proud  little  hedge- 
sparrow's  egg  and  breaks  in  the  sunset;  of  the  blue 
that  lies  in  sincere  eyes,  and  the  cool,  pure  blue  of 
blue-bell  carpets ;  of  the  pink  that  blushes  in  the  wood 
anemone,  and  in  the  ocean  shell,  and  in  the  tips  of 
baby-fingers,  and  the  glad  cheeks  of  nursing  mothers ; 
of  the  browns  of  autumn  leaf,  of  human  hair,  and  the 
ripe  fruits  of  nut-trees — in  a  universe  of  infinite 
variety,  where  tone  differs  so  from  tone  that  it  shall 
take  a  man  his  lifetime  to  fill  his  hands  with  shells  on 
the  shore  of  that  variety;  where  form  is  so  multiple 
that  nothing  is  like  another ;  where  texture  rings  the 
countless  changes  between  the  carbon  which  is  well- 
nigh  incombustible  and  the  down  of  a  bird's  wing; — in 


A  REHEARSAL.  303 

this  universe  of  infinite  variety,  unfolding  ever  and 
still  more  to  the  unfolding  senses  of  progressive 
growth ;  the  black  and  scarlet  woman  has  only  her 
primitive  black  and  scarlet  to  engage  our  illimitable 
color-range. 

On  a  mighty  whirling  planet,  only  a  few  feet  sepa- 
rated from  whose  seething  heart  ferns  and  flowers  and 
damp  cool  forests  nestle — homes  wherein  for  doves  to 
coo  their  love-stories,  and  large-eyed,  untamed  crea- 
tures to  lurk  securely — the  black  and  scarlet  woman 
makes  her  flimsy  parody,  and  dances  her  little  scarlet- 
stockinged  steps  upon  the  threshold  of  a  great  mys- 
terious sanctuary  wherein  lie  the  sacred  secrets  of 
human  love  and  birth. 

"Everything  is  pure,"  says  mighty  Nature,  walking 
in  the  Garden  of  the  World.  "Everything  is  Pure 
that  I  have  made. ' ' 

"Everything  is  Impure,"  jests  the  scarlet- woman. 
' '  Everything  is  Impure  that  I  have  touched. ' ' 

But  Nature  made  them,  and  they  shall  return  once 
more  within  her  Healing  Shadow.  Even  the  black 
and  scarlet  woman  shall  be  washed  white  in  the  dews 
of  her  Great  Woods. 

However,  these  are  very  large  considerations — these 
Shall-Be's  of  Evolution — to  consider  beside  the  Lady 
Alicia's  pink-and-lilac  toilette,  as  she  drove  radiant  in 
her  consciousness — armed  to  the  teeth  with  it,  indeed — 
the  consciousness  of  looking  her'  best.  She  was  so 
blonde,  so  pink,  so  blue-eyed,  that  Kershaw,  observing 
her  bitterly,  could  not  be  surprised  that  he  had  been 
deceived  by  her  lovely  translucency  and  had  not  sus- 
pected callosities  beneath,  callosities  of  selfishness  and 
egoism,  till  hers  was  not  the  I  of  a  well-poised  person- 
ality, but  I's  that  sprouted,  knotty  and  gnarled  like 
cancer-specks,  through  all  her  perfect  flesh. 

Observing  her  with  the  larger  vision  of  the  poet,  he 
was  ashamed  of  himself  for  detecting  her  shortcomings. 
It  seemed  so  pitiful,  so  immature,  so  childish,  this 
small-souled  life  of  hers,  this  life  of  gowns  and  shal- 
low gaities. 

"For  heaven's  sake,  let  me  not  be  her  censor,"  he 


304  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

protested.  "I  can  be  guardian  and  friend  to  her,  at 
all  events.  I  can  protect  her  in  some  measure,  if  I 
can  do  nothing  else." 

Likewise  he  was  not  lacking  in  hot  pride  that  his 
wife's  name  should  be  above  reproach. 

He,  like  many  another,  found  the  ambition  of  a 
number  of  the  women  of  his  class  to  reproduce  the 
ways  and  manners,  if  not  the  morals,  of  the  demi- 
monde inexplicable. 

A  demi-mondaine  would  give  that  world  whereof 
she  holds  the  nether  half  to  be  mistaken  for  a  duchess, 
and  the  duchess  would  often  give  her  upper  world  to 
be  mistaken  for  a  demi-mondaine.  Are  women  never 
content  to  be  true  to  themselves?  he  wondered. 

"This  is  an  unexpected  distinction,"  Waldon  ob- 
served with  the  elaborate  affability  of  a  stage  manager 
emulating  his  leading  gentleman.  Nobody  could 
understand  why  Waldon,  with  three  hundred  years  of 
family  behind  him,  wore  the  manner  of  his  class  as  a 
costermonger  wears  his  Sunday  suit.  They  forgot  that 
three  hundred  years  of  family  stand  occasionally  for 
degenerating  family,  under  which  circumstances  the 
line  might  with  benefit  have  been  broken. 

"I  believe  he  is  only  craving  to  be  invited  to  take 
part,"  Alicia  cried,  maliciously.  "Couldn't  we  get  up 
a  tableau  with  St.  Sebastian  or  some  other  perfect 
person  in  it?" 

"I  am  afraid  our  programme  is  full,"  Waldon 
returned,  shortly.  He  eyed  Kershaw  with  no  very 
great  favor.  Was  the  man  going  to  mount  dragon 
over  his  wife?  Sometimes  he  was  not  at  all  certain 
that  he  ought  not  to  have  married  her  himself.  Other 
men  admired  her  so  much.  He  was  not  altogether 
confident  that  she  would  have  accepted  him.  He 
knew  she  had  entertained  higher  ambitions;  she  had 
married  Kershaw  only  by  a  fluke,  but  he  suspected 
dimly  that  Kershaw's  handsome  personality  had  been 
the  occasion  of  the  fluke.  No,  hang  it!  he  wasn't 
going  to  get  up  a  tableau  to  immortalize  Kershaw. 

The  grouping  of  the  pictures  was  an  interesting 
spectacle.  A  noted  actor-manager  had  undertaken  to 


A  REHEARSAL.  3°5 

assist,  and  the  contrast  between  his  and  the  amateur 
manager's  bearing  afforded  an  object  lesson  in  dis- 
crepancies. Waldon  fell  easily  into  the  position  of 
subordinate. 

It  was  not  a  dress  rehearsal,  this  being  the  first  meet- 
ing, but  a  detailed  plan  of  operations  had  been  pre- 
pared. 

' '  It  will  be  a  difficult  company, ' '  the  actor -manager 
said,  "training  and  discipline  go  far  to  help." 

But  he  was  wrong.  The  social  training,  though 
its  ends  be  not  exalted,  is  in  default  of  a  better  and 
excellent  means.  These  well-bred  persons  bore  them- 
selves easily,  and  had  their  features  well  in  hand. 
The  lack  of  self -consciousness  which  comes  of  the 
noblesse  which  obliges  graceful  comportment,  stood 
them  in  good  stead. 

They  fell  easily  and  unaffectedly  into  the  poses 
assigned  them. 

The  incongruity  between  modern  dress  and  the 
expression  of  emotion  was  ridiculously  apparent. 
Grief  stretched  supplicating  hands  to  heaven,  her 
uplifted  arms  distorted  by  gigantic  sleeves,  the  pose 
of  her  head  restricted  by  the  hitching  of  an  elaborate 
coiffure  upon  the  stiff  edge  of  her  high  collar,  while 
the  stylish  pleats  of  her  silk  skirt  falling  from  a  wasp 
waist  revealed  the  taper  heels  and  narrow  soles  of 
fashionable  boots. 

"Elbows  a  little  higher,"  enjoined  the  actor- 
manager. 

"Impossible — in  these  sleeves,"  Grief  responded, 
irritably. 

"Head  more  raised." 

"How  can  I  in  this  ridiculous  collar?" 

"The  drapery  must  flow  in  curves  of  abandonment 
and  loosely  from  the  waist." 

"It's  horse-hair,"  Grief's  spouse  confided  in  a  melo- 
dramatic "aside." 

Whereupon  Grief's  distresses  and  shortcomings  were 
momentarily  lost  in  laughter. 

There  were  three  graces  intertwining  arms.  Ingen- 
ious aid  was  given  by  means  of  a  lantern,  which, 
20 


306         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

throwing  the  pictures  chosen  for  representation  upon 
a  large  screen,  assisted  the  posers  to  fall  readily  into 
attitude. 

It  required  all  the  breeding  present  to  restrain 
mirth  at  the  contrast  afforded  by  a  screen-picture  of 
the  Graces  in  Greek  dress,  undulant  of  curve,  flowing 
of  robe,  their  unbound  hair  rippling  loose  from  their 
broad  brows,  beside  three  fashionable  Graces  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  breastless,  hipless,  hour-glass 
waisted,  balancing  themselves  with  a  stylish  assertive- 
ness  on  narrow,  high-heeled  shoes,  their  foreheads 
bedecked  with  the  hundred  stiff,  meaningless  curls  of 
a  hairdresser's  fringe.  Each  of  these  Graces  had  been 
an  acknowledged  belle  of  the  previous  season.  Progress 
had  given  them  something  lacking  in  the  Grecian 
women ;  but  it  had  assuredly  taken  more  away. 

"Scarcely  a  success!"  the  actor-manager  submitted, 
gravely.  "These  ladies  would  show  to  more  advantage 
in  a  less — less  classical  and  more  up-to-date  group." 

The  Graces  smiled,  well-pleased.  If  there  was  one 
thing  more  than  another  whereon  they  prided  them- 
selves it  was  in  being  up-to-date. 

"Perfect  frights,  weren't  they?"  Alicia  whispered 
Vaux.  "I  hope  I  sha'n't  look  such  a  guy." 

"What  are  you?" 

"A  Watteau  shepherdess — first." 

"Oh,  you'll  be  all  right.  There  are  a  good  many 
centuries  of  civilization  between  Praxiteles,  or  who- 
ever the  chap  was  who  did  the  Graces,  and  Watteau." 

The  Watteau  shepherdess  was  received  with  accla- 
mation. Alicia  contrived  to  put  so  much  metropolitan 
devilry  into  the  rural  art  of  sheep-tending,  so  realistic 
a  swish  to  the  tail  of  her  pink-and-lilac  skirt,  that  it 
was  difficult  to  believe  that  skirt  had  not  revealed  a 
glimpse  of  buckled  shoes  and  silken  limbs.  The  actor- 
manager  was  moved  to  regard  her  with  a  contem- 
plative eye. 

"If  she  ever — comes  to  grief,"  he  reflected,  prac- 
tically, "she  has  a  living  in  her  hands.  I  couldn't  take 
her  on  myself — we  don't  go  in  for  that  particular  line ; 
but  she'd  make  a  hit  in  the  halls." 


A  REHEARSAL.  3°7 

"And  she's  my  wife!"  Kershaw  muttered,  with  all 
his  blood  in  his  face. 

"Why  the  devil  didn't  I  make  a  harder  fight  for 
her, ' '  growled  Waldon,  enviously. 

"She  is  nearly  as  great  as  Polly  Pacer,"  Vaux  con- 
fided to  his  cigarette,  "only  Polly  has  more  heart." 

Then  Alicia  was  Briseis,  captive  and  fair-cheeked, 
as  she  was  led  from  the  tent  of  Achilles  by  command 
of  Agamemnon,  reluctant,  weeping,  stretching  tender 
arms  to  her  invulnerable  lover,  who  stood  scowling  on 
her  captors. 

Vaux  was  Achilles. 

"With  a  helmet  and  a  false  mustache,"  he  said, 
diffidently,  "I  shall  pass.  My  calves  are  not  quite 
what  I  expect  that  Greek  chap's  would  have  been,  but 
the  fellow  who  does  the  make-up,  says  he  can  easily 
put  that  right  with  a  bit  o'  paddin'." 

It  was  late  before  the  rehearsal  was  over.  The 
pictures  refreshed  themselves  with  champagne, 
liquors,  and  pigeon  sandwiches,  and  Achilles,  be- 
wailing his  Briseis,  took  more  fiery  spirit  than  was  good 
for  him. 

"I'd  never  have  been  talked  into  bein'  this  Greek 
beggar  if  I  hadn't  thought  Milly  would  have  been 
here,"  he  grumbled,  driving  home,  and  reflecting 
that  to-morrow  would  certainly  bring  him  an  attack  of 
liver;  "and  Milly  writes  that  she  can't  leave.  I  sup- 
pose she's  got  the  washin'  or  mendin'  or  somethin'  to 
do.  Well,  it  would  be  livelier  than  this,  anyway. 
And  I  wonder  what  Alicia  told  that  lie  about  her 
losin'  her  money  for,  I'm  sure  it  was  a  lie." 

Vaux  had  thought  it  over  after  leaving  The  Towers 
that  afternoon,  and  summed  up  the  merits  of  the  case 
on  the  probabilities.  Alicia  had  told  a  lie  or  Milly  had. 
Having  so  reduced  the  matter  to  its  two  component 
factors,  he  had  no  difficulty  in  choosing  between  them. 
Alicia  had,  of  course.  It  was  worse  than  idiocy  on  his 
part  to  have  pitted  her  veracity  against  Millicent's  for 
an  instant.  But  why  should  Alicia  have  lied?  That 
was  a  problem,  and  that  he  determined  to  solve. 

Alicia,  driving  home  through  a  cool  evening  of  corn 


308        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

fields  and  lovely  secluded  lanes  and  perfumed  places, 
was  in  abominable  temper. 

"Why,"  Kershaw  said,  "I  found  it  rather  amusing." 

"I  was  vilely  bored,"  she  cried,  angrily;  "and  then 
that  filthy,  half-worm  champagne,  and  those  nasty, 
rotten  little  scraps  of  pigeon — Waldon's  a  disgusting 
beast  to  give  us  such  stinking  food. ' ' 

"Gbod  Lord!  Alicia,"  her  husband  said,  "what 
language  you  use." 

"Language!"  she  said,  and  laughed — an  evil  laugh. 
''If  you  want  language  you  shall  have  it." 

He  did  not  want  it,  but  he  had  it — language  that 
would  have  been  a  credit  to  Billingsgate,  did  credit 
that  way  lie.  Turns  of  speech  and  modes  of  thought 
it  had  never  occurred  to  him  any  decent  woman 
admitted  to  her  mind  or  tongue. 

There  was  a  livid  bloom  all  over  her  pink  face ;  once 
or  twice  she  kicked  at  him  savagely ;  the  back  of  her 
glove  split  open  to  the  swell  of  her  clenched  fist.  He 
remembered  how  she  had  bitten  him.  He  felt  sick 
through  all  his  frame  to  hear  the  license  and  virulence 
of  her  words  and  voice,  and  to  see  the  distortion  of 
her  face.  She  seemed  to  have  lost  all  control.  The 
coachman  and  footman,  sitting  before  them  in  decent 
counterfeit  of  menial  abstraction,  could  not  fail  to 
hear  her. 

"For  heaven's  sake,  control  yourself!"  he  adjured 
her  in  low  tones.  "Are  you  mad?  What  has  offended 
you?" 

She  paid  him  not  the  slightest  heed.  She  continued 
her  volley  of  abuse,  railing,  raving,  almost  shouting 
in  her  abandon  of  rage,  as  they  rolled  through  the 
summer-clad  lanes,  where  tall,  cool  grasses,  and  white 
flowers  like  stars  and  moons  and  innocent  eyes,  lifted 
their  manifold  beauty. 

I  am  sorry  to  betray  Alicia  in  this  mood.  She  was 
generally  even-humored,  laughing,  and  amused.  But 
when  her  even  surface  was  ruffled,  dregs  rose.  And 
I  have  known  many  dainty-looking  women  of  Alicia's 
type,  when  their  even-surface  has  been  ruffled,  to  use 
very  grimy  language.  Shallow  natures,  like  shallow 


A  REHEARSAL.  309 

waters,  are  apt  to  be  muddy,  or  to  be  easily  made  so. 
Depth  and  quiet  are  needed  wherein  for  the  un worthier 
elements  of  consciousness  to  settle.  Alicia's  nature 
had  no  depth ;  her  life  was  a  mere  round  and  whirl  of 
petty  aims  and  restless  activities.  An  hour  of  solitude 
was  torment  to  her.  She  had  no  mind  wherein  to 
retire.  She  must  be  forever  performing  her  little 
social  tricks,  or  existence  were  a  blank. 

It  may  be  urged  that,  for  the  honor  of  my  sex,  I 
should  have  concealed  the  fact  that  behind  the  curtain 
my  fair  heroine  was  capable  of  relapsing  into  bargee 
language.  But  being  a  faithful  historian,  I  am  bound 
to  depict  her  in  all  her  bravery  of  character.  I  have 
risen  into  rhapsody  on  the  subjects  of  her  form,  her 
complexion,  her  gold  hair,  and  charming  wiles,  so 
must  I  complete  the  picture  by  confessing  her  at  the 
depth  of  her  dazzling  skin  a  mere  aboriginal  female. 
Nature  has  strange  ways  of  illustrating  herself.  Occa- 
sionally, with  a  hand  which  seems  ironic,  but  may  in 
truth  be  kind,  she  breaks  into  perfect  workmanship, 
and  makes  one  bad  woman  look  what  all  good  women 
are.  The  perfect  face  is  a  beautiful  mask,  in  the 
elaboration  whereof  the  potentialities  of  brain  and 
heart  have  been  expended.  So  Nature  gives  a  man  a 
frame,  or  a  mind,  or  a  voice,  which,  were  all  his 
qualities  up  to  an  equal  standard  of  excellence,  would 
make  him  a  god,  whereas  he  is  but  the  instrument  of 
a  human  power,  a  lure  whereby  Nature  leads  progres- 
sion. In  a  million  years,  it  may  be,  the  quality  which 
makes  him  pre-eminent  in  this  day  of  beginnings  will 
be  the  average ;  but  to-day  we  worship  it  under  the 
title  of  genius. 

Therefore  we  must  not  altogether  blame  Alicia  for 
her  shortcomings.  Her  face,  which  serves  her  for  a 
mask,  and  for  the  painting  whereof  the  hues  which 
might  have  made  her  a  soul  had  been  lavishly  spent, 
served  the  world  also. 

Many  a  plain,  better  woman,  seeing  that  face,  went 
home  hugging  the  beauty  of  it  wistfully  to  her  heart, 
that  she  might  get  something  of  it  into  the  face  and 
fibre  of  her  developing  child.  And  that  is  what  Nature 


310        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

intended.  Nature  loves  no  individual  man  or  woman. 
Nature  only  loves  the  race. 

However,  Kershaw  was  at  present  too  closely  teth- 
ered to  Alicia  to  be  able  to  take  a  philosophic  bird's 
eye  view  of  her  uses.  The  torrent  of  invective  stream- 
ing from  the  sieve  of  her  coarse-celled  brain  stung 
him  to  madness.  He  felt  moved  to  take  her  by  the 
collar  of  her  pink-and-lilac  gown  and  drop  her  in  the 
road. 

It  appeared  she  had  been  disappointed  about  a  tab- 
leau. Waldon  had  promised  her  that  she  should 
appear  with  somebody  she  did  not  name,  and  that 
somebody  had  not  turned  up,  so  Waldon  and  the 
derelict  were  described  in  terms  which  might  have 
astonished  them. 

Despite  an  overmastering  desire  to  do  so,  Kershaw 
refrained  from  dropping  her  in  the  road.  He  called 
to  the  coachman,  and,  the  carriage  stopping,  he  him- 
self got  down. 

' '  Home, ' '  he  instructed.     ' '  I  shall  walk. ' ' 

And  the  pink-and-lilac  toilette,  corn-colored  hair, 
and  vituperative  tongue  were  presently  beyond  sight 
and  hearing. 

Three  miles  of  quiet  lane  and  hedgerow,  overhang- 
ing trees,  in  whose  shade  and  keeping  birds  carolled 
out  of  their  fluty  throats  the  joys  of  domesticity,  and 
flowers  gave  him  of  their  loveliness  and  odors  as  he 
passed!  So  Nature  proffered  him  her  balm. 

But  I  fear  me — for  all  his  poet's  mind — he  thank- 
lessly rejected  it.  His  imagination  at  that  moment 
served  only  to  project  him  forward  to  an  horizon 
where  life  stretched  long  and  turbulent,  with  Alicia 
for  mate. 

There  must  be  some  way  of  managing  her,  he 
reflected,  trudging  along.  He  started  seeking  it. 

He  might  have  spared  himself  the  trouble.  In  the 
domestic  contest  between  a  large  and  a  small  nature, 
the  small  invariably  wins.  Such  a  battle  entails  so 
many  mean  persistences  and  wretched  shifts  that  the 
greater  yields.  Take  your  victory,  it  cries,  only  give 
me  one  hour's  peace. 


A  REHEARSAL.  311 

That  is  the  reason  why  small-mindedness  sits  often 
in  the  highest  places  of  our  year  of  grace.  Small- 
mindedness  holds  no  space  in  it  for  peace — all  its  bits 
of  furniture  and  mean  acquirements  jostle  one  another. 
Having  no  space  to  sit  at  home  in  the  quiet  of  being, 
it  is  forever  on  the  highway  doing;  and  he  who  is 
forever  on  the  highway  gains  the  turnpike  first. 

But  it  is  such  a  dusty,  soul-destroying,  sordid  way — 
the  highway.  Beside  it  there  are  fields  and  flowers  and 
perfumed  pastures ;  along  it  there  are  only  vans  of 
goods  and  chatties,  baker's  carts  and  butcher's,  gangs 
of  driven  men  and  women,  wrecks  and  human  out- 
casts, tramps  and  jail-birds.  And  whither  does  all  the 
haste  and  turmoil  tend,  when  they  who  are  first  may 
after  all  be  last? 

When  he  met  Alicia  at  dinner  she  had  regained  her 
normal  humor. 

She  wore  a  gown  of  silver  tissue,  and  an  opal  necklet 
he  had  given  her. 

She  looked  like  a  fashionable  angel,  and  she  smiled 
at  him  divinely. 

"So  sorry  I  was  cross,  Dicksy, "  she  whispered,  when 
the  butler  had  momentarily  withdrawn. 

"It's  all  right,  dear,"  he  said,  dejectedly.  He  had 
not  come  to  any  definite  conclusions  as  to  that  plan  of 
management.  Where  self-respect  and  affection  were 
lacking,  he  considered  ruefully,  what  lever  of  influence 
remained?  Had  he  been  a  smaller  man  he  might  have 
tried  compulsion;  but  your  six-foot  man  is  always 
diffident  of  putting  out  his  strength  against  a  woman. 
Moreover,  as  Alicia  had  said,  he  could  not  set  her 
under  lock  and  key  or  beat  her.  Lord  Windermere 
was  the  only  person  in  the  world  she  had  feared,  and 
this  was  because  she  knew  him  capable,  as  he  fre- 
quently threatened,  of  horse-whipping  her.  But  fear 
of  hurting  or  of  angering  another  would  never  have 
weighed  with  Alicia  where  her  inclinations  were  at 
stake.  I  must  have  my  own  way  was  the  standpoint 
to  which  she  forever  reverted  with  a  persistent  shallow 
obstinacy. 

When  the  servants  had  quitted  the  room,  she  deserted 


312         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

her  chair,  and  perched  herself  in  all  her  bravery  of 
silver  tissue  on  his  knee.  She  put  a  slender  arm  about 
his  throat,  and  drew  his  head  against  her  breast. 

"How  you  snubbed  me,"  she  chided  him,  "leaving 
me  to  drive  home  alone." 

He  kissed  her  with  a  swell  of  hunger  at  his  heart. 
He  was  not  a  six  months'  bridegroom,  and  he  had 
dreamed  fond  dreams.  He  put  a  passionate  hold 
about  her — about  this  fair  wife  of  his  who  was  but 
perfect  flesh.  Even  so  Pygmalion  might  have  yearned, 
embracing  perfect  stone. 

"You  goose,"  she  whispered,  "other  men  think  me 
piquante  when  I  scold. ' ' 

"Has  any  man  but  me  heard  you  scold  as  you  did 
this  afternoon?"  he  questioned,  with  a  shiver.  Did 
any  but  he  know  ulcer-spots  in  his  wife's  dainty  body? 
She  was  watching  up  at  him  with  the  eyes  that  were 
laid  over  his  breast.  When  she  answered  there  was  a 
note  of  weariness  in  her  voice. 

"Oh,  I  have  been  cross  sometimes,"  she  said,  indefi- 
nitely. "And  heaps  of  women  use  language  to  their 
relatives  and  husbands.  Richard,  what  a  lot  you 
have  to  learn.  Have  you  been  always  a  monk?" 

"No, "he  said. 

"Tell  me?"  she  whispered.    But  he  told  her  nothing. 

"That's  a  silly  notion, "  she  began  again,  rubbing 
her  corn-colored  head  with  petulance  against  his  coat ; 
"that  notion  that  women  are  saints.  We  never  have 
been  and  we  never  shall  be.  Even  when  we  are 
kicked  and  flayed  for  it,  or  kept  in  zenanas,  we  manage 
to  get  into  mischief.  " 

"I  don't  think  anybody  wants  you  to  be  saints,"  he 
said.  "God  knows,  a  man  badly  enough  wants  a 
woman  to  be  human. ' ' 

"You  call  it  human — Mrs.  Grundy  calls  it  bad." 

"We  are  not  talking  of  the  same  thing,"  he  said. 
"It  isn't  being  human  brings  women  into  the  divorce 
court,  for  example.  There  isn't  one  woman  in  five 
hundred  who  gets  there  because  she  cares  about  a 
man.  It's  one  part  vanity,  one  part  selfishness,  and 
two  parts  devilry  or  diamonds.  Sometimes  a  woman 


A  REHEARSAL.  313 

gets  there  by  mistake — because  she  really  cares, 
because  she  is  human — and  then  God  help  her  for  the 
company  she  finds  herself  in ! " 

"Well,  after  all,  you  know,  Richard,  I  suppose  meii 
and  women  caring  for  one  another  is  chiefly  selfishness 
and  devilry,  if  you  are  only  honest  enough  to  analyze 
the  feeling.  " 

"Good  Lord,"  he  said,     "Whose  feeling?" 

"Why,  everybody's.  Yours — and  mine.  I  don't 
pretend  to  be  one  of  these  saints. ' ' 

"Yet  the  finest  acts  in  history,  the  finest  lives  lived, 
have  been  done  and  lived  for  the  love  of  a  man  or 
a  woman." 

' '  Oh,  those  are  superlative  people — those  people  who 
get  into  history.  I  am  talking  of  average  persons. 
Now,  confess  the  truth,  sir.  Was  not  the  reason  you 
married  me  because  you  think  me  pretty?  You  want 
me  because  I  am  pretty,  and  you  don't  want  anybody 
else  to  have  me." 

He  held  her  at  arm's  length,  and  looked  into  her 
face. 

"Do  you  seriously  believe  that  that  is  all  I  felt?" 

"Felt?  Why  don't  you  say  feel?"  she  cried,  peev- 
ishly. 

Why  did  he  stare  at  her  as  though  he  were  ques- 
tioning the  quality  of  her  hair  and  skin? 

"Did  I  say  'felt'?  Well,  let  it  pass.  Answer  me  if 
that  is  all  you  think  love  is  worth?" 

"Why,  of  course  it  is,"  she  said,  sidling  back  against 
him.  ' '  You  know  that  is  all  love  really  is.  A  man 
likes  to  kiss  a  pretty  woman,  and  to  own  her." 

' '  Men  marry  plain  women  and  crippled  women.  Men 
have  given  their  lives  for  woman  under  circumstances 
where  there  could  be  no  reward  of  kissing  or  owning. 
Women  have  kept  faith,  and  have  suffered  their  whole 
lifetime  for  dead  men — " 

"Well,  I  daresay  they  were  frumps,"  she  said, 
irritably,  "and  thankful  to  have  anybody  to  care  for 
her.  And,  after  all,  if  you  love  me  in  such  a  superior 
way,  it  is  very  curious  you  made  such  a  fuss  about  me 
playing  in  the  tableaux  when  you  knew  how  much  I 


314         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

wanted  to,  and  snubbed  me  just  for  being  cross  this 
afternoon. ' ' 

He  did  not  attempt  to  explain.  Like  most  writers, 
he  was  not  a  person  of  many  words.  Moreover,  he 
knew  that  all  the  words  in  all  the  tongues  will  not 
explain  the  quality  of  color  to  the  blind. 

"Love  me,"  she  whispered  against  his  throat.  "I 
believe  you  have  grown  tired  of  me,  and  I  want  to  be 
loved." 

He  took  her  in  his  arms  and  kissed  her  with 
an  empty  heart. 

"Oh,"  he  cried  passionately,  "you  beautiful  thing! 
"Why  can't  you  be  what  you  look?" 


GLADYS  OSBORNE.  315 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 
GLADYS  OSBORNE. 

"I  grant  to  the  wise  his  meed, 

But  his  yoke  I  will  not  brook, 
For  God  taught  me  to  read, 
He  lent  me  the  world  for  a  book." 

"That  is  not  from  Prince  Ludwig?"  he  said,  handing 
her  a  letter. 

"Possibly,"  she  answered,  with  a  curious  transitory 
gleaming  in  her  eye.  "Tea  or  coffee,  Richard?" 

"He  should  not  write  to  you,"  he  said.  "That  is 
the  third  letter  this  week.  What  does  he  say?" 

"Tea  or  coffee?  The  letter!  oh,  I  can't  trouble  to 
open  it  yet.  Will  you  take  tea  or  coffee,  Bluebeard?" 

She  sat  at  the  tray  in  a  charming  morning-gown  of 
buff.  It  framed  her  corn  coloring  like  a  filmy  sheath. 
Half  way  through  breakfast  he  inquired  again  about 
the  letter. 

"Oh,  bother, "she  answered.  "I  have  not  opened 
it  yet." 

At  the  end  of  breakfast  he  picked  it  up  and  put  it 
into  her  hand. 

"Open  it,  dear,"  he  said,  "and  let  me  answer  it  for 
you.  It  is  the  worst  taste  for  him  to  write  to  you  at 
all." 

"I  shall  open  it  when  I  please,"  she  said,  and  slip- 
ped it  into  her  pocket. 

But  Kershaw  had  no  intention  of  yielding  this  time. 
There  were  limits  to  his  patience. 

' '  Open  it  now, ' '  he  insisted  quietly.  4 '  It  may  require 
an  answer  from  me." 

She  sat  staring  defiance  at  him  out  of  brilliant 
eyes.  Then  suddenly  she  weakened,  dropping  her 
lids. 

She  took  the  letter  from  her  pocket,  and  tore  it  open 
angrily. 


316        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

When  she  had  read  it  he  removed  it  from  her  re- 
luctant fingers. 

"You  have  no  right,"  she  muttered.  "I  will  not  be 
coerced. ' ' 

"So  you  have  written  to  him,"  he  said,  when  he  had 
glanced  through  it.  "And  you  faithfully  promised  me 
that  you  would  not.  What  is  this  he  says  about 
playing  Achilles  in  the  tableaux?" 

"I  didn't  arrange  it,"  she  protested.  "Only  I  would 
never  have  been  Briseis  if  I  had  known  Vaux  was  to 
be  Achilles.  He  hasn't  the  figure  for  it.  He  is  too 
scraggy.  He  spoils  the  picture. " 

"And  you  asked  Ludwig  to  take  the  part?" 

"It  was  originally  cast  for  him. " 

"You  didn't  know  it,  Alicia?"  he  said,  less  fiercely. 
"You  couldn't  have  agreed  after  all  that  has  hap- 
pened?" 

She  was  silent.     Then  she  said  evasively: 

"No,  I  didn't  know  it." 

"But  how  could  you  ask  such  a  thing  of  him?  It 
seems  incredible — under  the  circumstances." 

"It  is  nonsense,"  she  cried,  hotly.  "I  cannot  keep 
out  of  society  for  fear  of  meeting  Ludwig.  We  have 
to  meet,  so  the  best  thing  is  to  behave  as  though  noth- 
ing had  happened." 

"Of  course — but  not  to  seek  him." 

"Oh,  I  don't  see  that  it  matters,"  she  protested. 

"Well,  as  he  very  properly  says,  he  can't  ask  Vaux 
to  turn  out  for  no  better  reason  than  that  he  has 
changed  his  plans,  seeing  that  Vaux  has  had  the  bother 
of  rehearsing." 

"You  ask  Vaux  to  give  it  up,  Richard.  He'll  do 
anything  for  you,  and  I  do  so  want  it  to  go  off  nicely. 
Ludwig  has  such  a  soldierly  figure,  and  somebody  said 
Vaux's  legs  were  not  equally  padded.  It  will  cover 
me  with  ridicule." 

"I'll  tell  him  about  the  legs,"  Kershaw  said.  He 
had  ceased  to  be  astonished  at  Alicia,  or  he  might 
have  stopped  to  wonder  at  her  flimsy  reasons. 

But  Alicia  herself  wrote.  She  was  sure,  she  said, 
her  sweet  Tom  would  retire  in  favor  of  Prince  Ludwig. 


GLADYS  OSBORNE.  317 

She  had  looked  forward  to  it  as  an  easy  means  of 
slurring  over  past  disagreeables  with  the  prince.  It 
would  be  nicer  for  Richard,  too,  to  be  on  pleasant 
terms  with  Ludwig,  as  he  had  taken  a  house  in  the 
neighborhood,  and  would  soon  settle  there  for  good. 
And  Alicia  was  so  fond  of  Ena,  and  wished  to  be 
friends. 

She  smiled  while  she  wrote  it,  and  smiled  till  the 
answer  came.  Sweet  Tom  begged  a  thousand  pardons. 
He  had  no  wish  to  be  selfish  nor  to  unduly  press  his 
case.  But  he  could  not  tamely  yield  so  rare  an 
opportunity.  He  had  spent  sleepless  nights  enough 
congratulating  himself  upon  his  luck.  If  the  skies 
should  fall,  he  must  once  in  his  life  have  been  Achilles 
to  Alicia's  Briseis! 

He  sealed  and  dispatched  it  by  a  groom. 

"Hang  it,"  he  said,  "if  Alicia  wants  to  go  to  the 
devil,  I  won't  give  her  a  hand  up." 

He  strolled  over  to  Summerlake.  "I'll  find  out 
from  Waldon  if  it  is  true — if  I  am  really  only  Ludwig 's 
substitute,"  he  said,  perhaps  a  trifle  ruffled  as  to  his 
vanity. 

His  lordship,  he  was  told,  was  in  the  billiard-room. 

"All  right,  Bishop,"  he  said,  "don't  bother,  I'll  find 
him  there. ' ' 

There  was  someone  in  the  billiard-room,  but  not  his 
lordship. 

The  someone  was  a  very  handsome  person,  with  a 
girl's  features  and  expression,  and  a  woman's  eyes. 
She  was  sitting  at  a  table,  strewn  with  books  and 
papers,  when  he  entered. 

She  rose  and  bowed,  with  an  ironic  question  in  the 
eyes,  dark,  fine,  and  lustrous  under  their  long  lashes. 

"Pardon,"  he  said;  "they  told  me  Lord  Waldon  was 
here." 

"Pray  do  not  explain,"  she  responded,  distantly. 
"I  did  not  suspect  you  of  being  my  visitor." 

He  had  turned  to  leave.     He  turned  back. 

"Why,"  he  said,  smiling,  "I  might  have  been,  you 
know,  if  I  had  known  you  were  here.  Is  it  Miss 
Osborne?" 

She  nodded. 


3i 8  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"One  never  meets  you,"  he  said.  "One  hears  of 
you  occasionally  headin '  a  tripos,  and  gettin '  B.  A.  's 
and  things,  but  you  never  condescend  to  mere  society.  " 

"Life  is  so  short,"  she  said,  gravely,  "and  there  is 
so  much  to  get  in. ' ' 

"Ah,  "  he  said;  "now  that  is  a  point  on  which  you 
and  I  differ.  Life  seems  to  me  a  precious  lengthy 
business.  " 

She  was  elbow-deep  in  papers.  A  barricade  of  books 
protected  her. 

"You  speak  as  though  you  were  bored,"  she  said, 
with  the  air  of  a  discoverer. 

"Bored,"  he  repeated.  "Why,  of  course  I  am  bored. 
It's  the  norm  of  the  nineteenth  century." 

Her  brow  cleared.     Her  dark  eyes  smiled. 

"I  see  you  think,"  she  said. 

"No,"  he  replied,  "I  don't.  Sometimes  I  borrow 
other  people's  notions.  I  got  that  notion  out  of  some- 
thin'  I  read  the  other  day." 

"Well,  you  apply  what  you  read." 

He  regarded  her  curiously. 

"Occasionally  I  do,"  he  said,  "in  particularly  bril- 
liant moments." 

A  flush  struggled  with  her  pallor.  She  laughed, 
embarrassed. 

"I  did  not  mean  to  be  rude,"  she  said;  "only  one 
grows  to  think  of  you  gay  society  folk  as  being  too — 
too  light-hearted  for  problems. ' ' 

"I  don't  think  I  should  bother  about  problems,  if  I 
were  you,"  he  returned.  "They  can't  be  settled  in 
studies,  you  know.  They'll  work  out  sometime,  but 
not  by  thinkin'  over.  A  problem  that's  stiff  enough 
to  be  worth  grindin'  over  has  got  to  be  lived.  That's 
the  only  way  you  can  settle  it. ' ' 

S^e  looked  at  him  with  interest. 

He  returned  her  interest  apparently.  At  all  events 
he  made  no  show  of  going. 

"Are  you  good  at  arithmetic?"  she  questioned.  "I 
am  fairly  up  in  higher  mathematics,  but  I  am  never 
sure  of  myself  in  arithmetic.  I  have  been  bothering 
some  minutes  over  this  thing.  " 


GLADYS  OSBORNE.  3J9 

It  was  a  simple  sum.    He  did  it  by  the  rule  of  three. 

1  'I  was  doing  it  a  different  way,  "  she  said.  "Thank 
you.  There  is  something  admirable  about  the  prac- 
ticality of  a  man's  brain.  " 

"You  hold  us  the  inferior  sex,  of  course?" 

'''Oh,  no, "she  said  magnanimously,  "different — one 
cannot  compare  dissimilars.  Perhaps  I  admire  the 
quality  of  a  woman's  brain  most.  " 

"I  do, "he  stated. 

She  leaned  forward. 

"Don't,"  she  said,  earnestly.  "It  demoralizes  us. 
So  long  as  men  think  like  that  about  us,  and  are 
chivalrous  and  generous,  we  shall  never  do  our  best. 
You  must  throw  over  all  sex  considerations,  and  meet 
us  fairly  as  man  to  man.  You  must  give  us  no 
advantages;  you  must  run  us  hard,  throw  us  if  you 
can,  and  leave  us  to  pick  ourselves  up.  " 

"I  don't  quite  see  our  obligation  to  be  howlin' 
beasts,"  he  said. 

"It  would  be  kinder  to  us  in  the  long  run,  than  to 
be  tenderly  patronizing,  as  you  have  been  in  the 
past." 

"Ah,"  he  said;  "is  that  how  it  strikes  you?  Have 
we  chaps  played  our  part  so  cheaply?  By-the-by,  do 
you  mind  if  I  smoke  a  cigarette,  or  am  Ikeepin'  you 
from  problems?" 

She  took  a  cigarette  case  from  the  breast-pocket  of 
her  coat.  She  passed  it  across  the  table  to  him. 

"I  think  you  will  find  them  decent  smoking, "she 
said.  "There  are  matches  on  the  mantle-piece.  Thank 
you,  I  think  I  will. " 

She  kindled  her  cigarette  at  the  lighted  match  he 
passed  her.  She  leaned  back  in  her  chair,  crossed  her 
legs  demurely,  and  breathed  out  a  thin  stream  of 
smoke  with  an  assumption  of  enjoyment. 

"You  don't  really  like  it,  I  suppose?"  he  submitted, 
eyeing  her. 

"Not  much,"  she  allowed;  "but  one  does  it." 

"It  is  strange  I've  never  fallen  in  with  you 
before,"  he  observed  presently.  "I  suppose  you  camp 
out  mostly  in  the  library?" 


320        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"When  I  am  'down,'  "  she  said.  "I  haven't  kept  all 
my  terms  yet.  When  I  am  fledged  I  shall — shall — ' ' 

"Fly  high,"  he  suggested. 

She  laughed. 

"I  want  to  do  some  good  work,"  she  said. 

"Slummin'?" 

"Oh,  no,  I  have  no  tastes  that  way.  I  should  not 
for  the  life  of  me  know  what  to  say  to  the  people.  I 
mean  serious  work — book  compiling,  or  annotating,  if 
I  don't  get  an  original  idea  for  writing  a  book  of  my 
own.  I  want  to  do  something  really  serious." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  that  I  should,  if  I  were  you," 
he  urged.  "There's  a  great  deal  too  much  of  that 
kind  o'  thing  about  already.  Couldn't  you  write 
verses  for  kids,  or  make  picture-books  to  make  'em 
laugh?" 

"Do  you  mean  toy-books  for  children?"  she  inquired, 
with  an  outraged  air. 

He  nodded. 

"Jolly  little  things  kids  are,"  he  said.  "It's  worth 
doin',  I  tell  you,  makin'  'em  happy  and  laugh." 

"I'm  afraid  I  am  not  very  humorous,"  she  said, 
stiffly. 

"Oh,  they're  not  exactin'.  Almost  anythin'  pleases 
'em.  Oh,  I  say,  I'm  sorry;  I  thought  that  was  what 
you  meant.  'Pon  honor,  I  was  serious." 

She  looked  hurt.     Her  face  was  sensitive  and  fine. 

"I  am  very  serious  about  my  work,"  she  said, 
proudly. 

He  went  over  and  stood  beside  her  table. 

"I'm  horribly  sorry,"  he  apologized;  "I  didn't 
mean  to — to  depreciate  it,  or  anythin'  of  that  kind  when 
I  said  write  books  for  children.  There's  Kate  Green- 
away,  you  know.  She's  done  more  for  people  than 
Dr.  Johnson,  for  instance,  or  Byron,  and  lots  o'  chaps, 
showin'  'em  how  pretty  kids  are,  and  that.  You  meet 
kids  every  day,  you  don't  meet  Corsairs." 

She  was  silent  and  still  sore. 

"The  world  will  be  a  beastly  sort  o'  place  presently, 
Miss  Osborne,"  he  persisted,  ruefully.  "We  men 
will  have  to  take  to  drink  and  bad  ways  when  all  you 


GLADYS  OSBORNE.  321 

women  are  cooped  up  in  studies  and  cricketin'  and 
bicyclin'  all  over  the  place,  and  doctorin',  and  all 
ridin'  hobby-horses.  The  men  and  children  will  have 
a  pretty  wretched  kind  o'  time." 

She  melted. 

"There  will  always  be  plenty  of  women  to  look  after 
the  men  and  babies,"  she  returned,  with  smiling 
scorn.  "There  is  a  very  large  surplus  of  our  sex,  you 
know,  and  only  a  very  small  proportion  of  us  go  in 
for  anything  serious." 

He  shook  his  head  gloomily. 

"Perhaps  not,"  he  said;  "but  most  of  'em  nowa- 
days 'go  in'  for  somethin',  and  from  what  I've  seen  of 
'em  it  isn't  safe  for  women  to  go  in  for  any  thin'. 
They  always  over-do  it,  whether  it's  golfin',  cyclin', 
learnin',  writin'  or  dancin'.  And  it  isn't  as  if  it  made 
'em  happy.  It  doesn't.  They're  all  restless  and  dis- 
contented. Whatever  they  go  in  for  they  can't  get 
enough  of. ' ' 

"This  is  a  very  brilliant  moment,"  she  smiled. 

He  was  somewhat  abashed. 

"I  don't  generally  talk,"  he  said,  apologetically. 
"You  set  me  off,  you  know.  But  honestly,  I  tell  you 
the  world  is  gettin'  to  be  a  very  beastly  lonely  sort  o' 
place.  A  chap  can't  tell  things — not  real  things,  you 
know — to,  another  chap,  and  his  mother's  probably 
bicyclin'  or  playin'  in  golf  competitions,  and  one  of 
his  sisters  is  up  to  her  eyes  in  mathematics,  and 
another's  heels  over  head  doin*  flimsy  water- colors,  and 
the  girl — a  girl  he's  fond  of,  perhaps — has  got  some  or 
other  fad  into  her  head  that  drives  everythin'  else 
out.  We  men  are  havin'  a  rippin'  bad  time  just  now, 
that's  all  I  have  to  say." 

"You  seem  to  think  a  woman  should  be  a  mere 
adjunct  to  a  man — a  mere  creature  to  listen  to  his 
grievances,  to  amuse,  and  be  subordinate  to  him.  To 
have  no  life  of  her  own,  or  work  of  her  own — to  be  a 
sort  of  squaw,  in  fact,  "  she  protested,  indignantly. 

"No,"  he  answered,  "I  don't  think  that  at  all.  I 
must  have  expressed  myself  very  badly.  Every  chap 
admires  a  girl  for  grit  and  bein'  clever.  I'd  let  'em 


322        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

do  everythin'  they  want  to,  and  have  rights,  only  it's 
a  pity  they  can't  take  things  at  their  proper  value,  and 
remain  jolly  all-round  human  women  instead  of  turnin" 
into  kind  o'  peg-tops  always  spinnin'  on  their  pegs 
till  a  chap  is  tired. ' ' 

"Is  that  what  we  do?"  she  inquired,  somewhat 
soberly. 

"Well,  I  think  you  do  a  bit,  you  know,"  he  said. 
"There's  my  mother,  for  instance — I'm  not  tellin" 
tales  out  o'  school,  because  all  the  county  knows  it — 
but  she  goes  in  for  business — runnin'  the  estate  and 
that.  She's  got  a  head  for  figures,  and  she's  a  capital 
farmer,  but  she  over-does  it.  She  wears  big  boots, 
and  tramps  round  all  day  with  a  spud  or  somethin'  in 
her  hand.  She's  got  an  eye  like  a  knittin'  needle,  and 
a  voice  like  a  man,  and  a  tongue — well,  everybody 
knows  Lady  Crossley's  talent  for  scoldin'.  She  talks 
farm,  and  beasts,  and  figures,  at  breakfast,  lunch,  and 
dinner.  If  you  meet  her  out  at  parties  she  talks  tur- 
nips to  you.  She  won't  put  up  with  a  ha'penny  wrong 
in  her  accounts.  She  doesn't  allow  a  quarter  inch 
margin  to  people's  shortcomings.  She's  always 
detectin'  some  chap  robbin'  eggs,  or  some  chap  stealin' 
corn,  or  a  dairymaid  givin'  a  drink  o'  cream  to  her 
sweetheart,  or  the  bailiff  takin'  a  tip.  The  house  is 
always  in  an  uproar.  She  rides  the  thing  to  death.  If 
we  were  to  lose  a  hundred  or  two  a  year,  well,  we 
shouldn't  be  in  the  bankruptcy  court,  and  we  might 
enjoy  an  hour's  peace.  It  was  all  right  when  the 
guv'nor  did  it.  He  was  tolerant  and  took  an  easier 
view,  and,  as  he  used  to  say,  a  gentleman  couldn't  be 
a  d — d  cheeseparin'  shopkeeper,  and  if  he  lost  a  few 
pounds  a  year,  someone  who  wanted  it  more,  perhaps, 
got  the  benefit  of  it.  He  did  it  all  without  overdoin' 
it,  and  nobody  would  have  known  he  was  doin'  it.  He 
didn't  bring  it  in  to  meals,  and  he  let  the  people  have 
as  good  a  time  as  he  knew  how. " 

"Oh,  there  is  something  in  what  you  say,"  his 
listener  admitted.  "I  think  we  get  angles." 

"Well,"  he  said  diffidently.  "It's  a  pity  you  do, 
you  know.  It  sets  people  against  women  doin'  any- 
thin'." 


GLADYS  OSBORNE.  323 

"Your  society-woman,  who  has  never  had  a  more 
serious  aim  than  to  marry  well,  is  just  as  extreme  in 
her  way. ' ' 

"Yes,"  he  said  calmly;  "you  are  all  alike." 

' '  You  are  unflatteringly  candid. ' ' 

"Well,  you  said  talk  to  you  as  man  to  man,  you 
know." 

"Do,"  she  said;  "after  all,  it  is  more  flattering  than 
compliments  and  humoring. ' ' 

"Well,  while  we're  talkin'  plainly,  just  tell  me  why 
they  don't  teach  Girton  and  Newnham  and  other 
learned  women  manners.  Men  would  get  kicked  if 
they  put  on  the  side  some  of  the  girls  up  at  Girton  and 
Newnham  do,  glarin'  and  elbowin'  and  snubbin'.  I 
went  once  to  the  Union  library  with  a  chap,  and  I  tell 
you  I  was  glad  to  get  out.  A  chap  can't  meet  that 
sort  o'  thing  in  women,  because,  of  course,  he  can't 
hit  her  over  the  head. ' ' 

"There  are  under-bred  women  all  over  the  world," 
Miss  Osborne  protested;  "and  you  must  not  forget 
that  a  large  proportion  of  women  who  study  or  work 
are  ungracious  and  ungraceful  not  because  study  or 
work  has  made  them  so,  but  because  being  so  they  are 
not  so  eligible,  as  are  nicer  women  for  marriage,  and 
therefore  adopt  an  alternative  life." 

"Well,  it's  a  pity  any  of  the  nice  women  go  in  for 
anythin'  but  beiii'  nice,"  he  said,  lugubriously. 
' '  There  are  precious  few  nice  women  about. ' ' 

She  leaned  back  in  her  chair  and  laughed,  her  dark 
eyes  glancing  over  his  face. 

"What  a  doleful  voice,"  she  said,  "when  you  have 
the  whole  wide  fashionable  world  of  charming  women 
to  range  in." 

"Ah,"  he  said,  "but  the  worst  of  it  is,  they've  gone 
to  an  extreme  like  all  the  rest.  They're  too  violently 
set  on  bein'  charmin'  to  be  really  charmin'.  You 
can't  be  violently  charmin',  you  know." 

She  laughed  again  under  her  breath.  He  took  it  so 
very  dismally. 

"There  is  uncle  crossing  the  lawn,"  she  said,  "and 
here  are  you  wasting  my  valuable  time  in  running 


324         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

down  my  sex.  You  can  go  out  by  the  window  if  you 
like.  You  will  just  catch  him. ' ' 

He  looked  reluctantly  whither  she  pointed. 

"Am  I  turned  out?" 

"For  this  morning,"  she  smiled,  holding  out  her 
hand. 

"I  should  like  to  thrash  this  subject  properly  out," 
he  submitted.  "I  shall  be  here  a  good  deal  helpin' 
Waldon  with  the  tableaux.  I'm  a  chap  without  any 
occupation  and  prone  to  the  blues. ' ' 

"Oh,  well,"  she  assented  brightly,  "come  in  some- 
times and  do  my  sums  for  me. ' ' 


"Don't  you  ride?"  he  inquired  another  morning  when 
he  had  escaped  from  the  hubbub  of  rehearsal.  He 
often  now  escaped  from  the  hubbub  of  rehearsal  and 
from  other  states  of  boredom  to  spend  a  few  minutes 
in  the  library.  On  this  occasion  he  felt  rather  abashed. 
Some  instinct,  he  was  not  quite  clear  as  to  what  it 
might  be,  had  moved  him  to  seek  her  in  the  guise  of 
Achilles.  He  removed  his  helmet  as  he  entered.  He 
pushed  forward  a  steel-clad  hand,  with  rather  a  self- 
conscious  smile. 

"I  like  it,"  she  said,  looking  him  up  and  down. 
"How  tall  you  look." 

"Oh,  I'm  not,"  he  objected,  diffidently.  "It's  the 
armor,  I  think.  I'm  under  six  feet." 

"Why  don't  men  always  dress  like  this?  It  would 
make  life  much  more  interesting. ' ' 

"Not  your  life?" 

"Oh,  not  my  life,  of  course."  She  was  silent  for  a 
moment.  Then  she  added,  with  a  whimsical  smile: 
"All  the  men  in  my  present  life  walk  in  coats  of  mail 
and  helmet  and  plume.  I  am  reading  Homer." 

"They're  not  real  fellows,"  he  protested,  grudgingly. 
"Homer  was  only  a  romancer.  I  don't  suppose  there 
was  ever  such  a  person  as  Achilles. " 

She  laughed. 

"Do  you  think  you  could  do  a  sum  for  me  in  shining 
armor?" 


GLADYS  OSBORNE.  325 

While  he  did  it  she  watched  him,  interested. 

"Did  you  ask  me  do  I  ride?"  she  questioned  when 
he  looked  up.  "Yes,  I  ride  sometimes." 

"I  have  never  seen  you  in  the  huntin'-neld. " 

"No,"  she  acquiesced,  "I  am  not  unsexed  enough 
for  that." 

"Why,  you  don't  think  it  cruel?" 

"If  it  were  not  I  don't  see  what  there  would  be  in 
it.  No,  I  take  a  solitary  canter  before  breakfast. " 

"Why,  so  do  I  sometimes,"  he  said,  "or  anyway  I 
could.  And  I  am  one  of  those  chaps  who  feel  terribly 
blue  in  their  own  company." 

"Some  day  we  will  ride  together,"  she  said;  "but  at 
present  I  am  hard  upon  Greek  verse,  and  I  work  it 
out  while  I  ride.  Now,  tell  me,  is  Lady  Alicia,  of 
whom  I  hear  so  much,  a  very  irresistible  person?" 

"Haven't  you  met  her?  Why,  you  are  an  absolute 
hermit?" 

"One  must  be  one  thing  or  another.  Society  allows 
no  other  god.  Is  she  very  beautiful?" 

"Very,"  he  said. 

"And  you  are  all  in  love  with  her?" 

"Oh,  love!"  he  said,  raising  his  brows.  "But  you 
will  see  her  in  the  tableaux.  She,  you  know,  is  my 
Briseis." 

"And  this  Miss  Rivers  of  whom  you  have  told  me. 
Is  she,  too,  to  be  there?" 

"No,  her  father  died  not  very  long  since,  so  she 
cannot  take  part.  And  now  she  isn't  even  coming," 
he  added,  gloomily. 

"That  is  a  pity." 

"Why?     You  don't  know  her.  " 

She  smiled  up  into  his  eyes.  "I  was  thinking  of 
you,"  she  said. 

He  was  silent.     Then  he  laughed  curtly. 

"Oh,  I  don't  deny  it." 

"Is  she  beautiful  too?" 

"No,  she  isn't  much  more  than  pretty,  though 
there's  something  about  her  face.  But  she  is  frank 
and  warm-hearted  and  charming." 

"And  clever?" 


326        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Yes,  she  is  clever  in  a  way,  but  not  at  all  learned." 
"Not  at  all  learned,"  Miss  Osborne  repeated  lightly. 
A  moment  later  she  exclaimed  somewhat  petulantly: 
"For  goodness  sake,  Mr.  Vaux,  go  back  to  your 
play-acting  and  let  me  finish  my  Greek  chapter.  What 

a  shocking  f ritterer  of  time  you  are. ' ' 

******* 

"And  so  Millicent  Rivers  is  the  ideal  woman,"  she 
said,  her  dark  lashes  dropped  over  the  eyes  intent 
upon  a  parallelogram. 

"She's  real  enough,"  he  answered,  moodily. 

' '  Your  ideal  being  the  real. ' ' 

"I  don't  see  how  you  can  get  anything  better  than 
the  real,"  he  urged.  "When  a  woman  has  a  kind 
heart  and  beautiful  eyes,  and  a  mind  as  true  as  steel, 
and  pretty  ways,  and  a  tall,  well  set  up  figure,  and 
somethin'  about  her  that  makes  a  chap  feel  a  bit  like 
bein'  in  church,  and  is  good-humored  and  hot-tem- 
pered, and  bright  and  clever,  and  has  plenty  of  soul, 
and  scolds  you  soundly  when  you  deserve  it,  and  is 
sorry  for  you  when  you  are  out  of  spirits — ' ' 

"She  sounds  rather  a  contradictory  sort  of  person," 
his  hearer  commented,  glancing  up  from  her  parallelo- 
gram with  the  corners  of  her  mouth  ironically  curved. 

"She  isn't  at  all,"  he  protested.  "It  all  blends  like — 
like—" 

"A  chameleon?"  the  ironic  lips  interrogated. 

"Oh,  come  now,"  he  said  gravely.  "Don't  let  us 
talk  about  her.  If  I  couldn't  properly  describe  her, 
it's  because  I'm  not  much  good  at  descriptions.  Now 
Kershaw — ' ' 

He  stopped  suddenly  short. 

"I  am  sure  you  described  her  very  nicely,"  Miss 
Osborne  said.  "Any  woman  might  be  proud  to  be  so 
described.  I  was  only  jesting." 

"I  wish  you  knew  her,"  he  broke  in. 

"I  wish  I  did.  Perhaps  I  may.  And  what,"  after 
a  pause,  during  which  her  eyes  were  intent  again  upon 
the  parallelogram — "and  what  does  Millicent  Rivers 
think  of  it  all?" 

He  got  up  slowly  and  walked  to  the  window. 


GLADYS  OSBORNE.  327 

"I  haven't  much  chance,"  he  said,  looking  deject- 
edly across  the  lawn. 

"Why  not?"  she  questioned,  sharply. 

"Why  not?"  he  echoed. 

He  turned  round,  and  stood  facing  her  diffidently, 
as  she  faced  up  at  him  with  keen,  penetrative  looks. 
She  ran  a  white,  compact  hand  over  the  edges  of  a  pile 
of  books  beside  her,  leveling  them  in  line. 

"Why  not?"  she  said  again. 

"Well,"  he  began  in  some  abasement,  "I'm  not 
good-lookin'." 

"No,"  she  assented,  "you  are  not." 

"I've  seen  chaps  worse  lookin',"  he  protested,  brid- 
ling. 

"Why,  so'have  I,"  she  said;  "much  worse." 

He  laughed. 

"Oh,  well,  I  don't  pretend  to  beauty.  And  then 
I'm  not  a  Croesus;  and  I've  never  done  anythin'.  I 
haven't  written  books,  or  fought  battles.  I'm  beastly 
bad-tempered. ' ' 

"You  conceal  that." 

"Oh,  I  haven't  ever  slanged  Millicent.  I  generally 
go  and  kick  about  the  stables." 

"Well?"  she  said,  as  though  making  an  inventory. 

"Oh,  well,"  he  continued,  "I'm  not  at  all  brilliant, 
you  know. ' ' 

' '  Only  in  moments, ' '  she  demurred,  her  dark  regard 
upon  him. 

"It's  strange,"  he  said,  candidly,  "I  have  more 
lucid  intervals  with  you  than  with  most  people.  I 
suppose  it's  because  you're  so  clever  yourself.  You 
spur  a  chap  to  exceed  his  normal." 

"But  you  prefer  to  be  normal!" 

"Oh,  no,  I  don't.   Everyman  likes  to  be  at  his  best." 

She  lettered  the  lines  and  angles  of  her  parallelo- 
gram. He  watched  the  dark,  shapely  head  and  the 
sensitive  face,  with  its  fine  power  of  concentration 
and  delicate  lines.  There  is  something  missing  in  her 
face,  he  thought,  or  she  would  be  very  handsome.  She 
looked  up  suddenly.  Meeting  his  interested  gaze  for 
a  moment,  there  was  nothing  missing  in  her  face. 


328        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

Color,  softness,  humor,  touched  it.  The  next  moment 
she  was  herself  again,  serious,  intent,  and  keen. 

"I  don't  think  we  have  altogether  exonerated  Miss 
Rivers  in  this  matter,"  she  said,  whimsically.  "We 
have  not  proved  you  without  a  shred  of  claim  to  con- 
sideration." 

"These  things  are  not  based  on  reason,"  he  submit- 
ted, "even if  she  had  any  reason  to  think  differently." 

"And  you  have  no  rival?" 

Her  face  kindled  again,  and  softened  at  the  empha- 
sis of  his  denial.  It  was  so  plain  to  her  woman's 
quick-wittedness  that  he  was  defending  another  wom- 
an' s  secret.  There  was  silence  between  them.  Then 
she  changed  the  subject. 

"So  the  tableaux  come  off  on  the  twenty-seventh. 
Prince  Ludwig  stays  the  week  with  us,  and  I  shall  be 
banished  to  the  clock-tower. ' ' 

'"Is  it  voluntary?"  he  inquired,  half  seriously. 
'  'Are  you  really  a  hermit,  or  shall  I  break  a  lance  with 
Wai  don  and  rescue  you  from  durance  vile?" 

She  shook  her  head,  smiling. 

"It  is  mere  perversity  on  my  part,"  she  insisted. 
'  'Uncle  is  indulgence  itself.  He  loathes  my  hermit 
ways.  I  believe  he  would  love  to  take  a  theatre  and 
employ  me  in  it  as  his  leading  lady.  Oh,  no,  spare 
your  lances !  Uncle  and  I  are  the  best  friends  possi- 
ble." 

"Shall  you  not  even  see  the  tableaux?" 

"How  can  I?  I  know  none  of  the  people.  Know- 
ing people  would  involve  me  in  a  maelstrom  of  calls, 
and  returning  calls,  visiting  and  being  visited.  As  it 
is,  people  who  know  of  my  existence  believe  I  am  a 
lunatic  or  an  eccentric  of  some  kind.  I  suppose  I  am, ' ' 
she  added,  with  a  half  sigh. 


A  VISITOR  TO  POPLAR  VILLA.  329 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 
A  VISITOR  TO  POPLAR  VILLA. 

Can  anything  be  so  elegant  as  to  have  few  wishes,  and  serve 
them  one's  self  ? 

"Alicia,  I  am  going  to  give  you  another  chance  to 
visit  Millicent,"  Kershaw  stated.  "This  is  the  sixth 
time  I  have  tried  to  arrange  a  visit.  She  says  it  is 
impossible  for  her  to  come  to  us.  Now,  will  you  go 
with  me  on  Monday?" 

"No,"  Alicia  returned;  "I  cannot  possibly  manage. 
With  the  tableaux,  and  the  de  Winters  coming  to  stop, 
I  can't  possibly  get  away.  Millicent  should  not  live 
such  a  long  distance  off.  It  takes  nearly  a  day  to  get 
there." 

"I  shall  take  rooms  for  the  night,  and  we  can  be 
back  to  lunch  next  day. ' ' 

"Well,  it  cannot  possibly  be  next  week.  Put  it  off 
till  there  is  more  time.  There  is  no  such  great  hurry. ' ' 

"No,"  he  insisted;  "it  has  been  put  off  too  long 
already.  I  must  go  alone  if  you  will  not  come  with 
me." 

"What  nonsense!"  she  cried,  wrathfully.  "Milli- 
cent can  exist  without  us  going  to  see  her,  I  suppose. 
She  writes  rarely  enough,  goodness  knows." 

Seeing  him  determined,  she  used  "language." 

"You  are  a  vile,  selfish  brute,"  she  apprised  him 
among  other  things.  "You  know  I  want  to  look  my 
best  at  the  tableaux,  and  I  shall  look  no  better  than 
a  tallow  rag  after  such  a  journey." 

"There  are  things  more  important  that  looks,"  he 
said,  disgusted.  Few  days  passed  whereon  he  did  not 
curse  the  folly  which  had  bound  him  to  so  mean  a  soul. 
Notwithstanding  all  her  arguments,  however,  she 
accompanied  him.  She  could  not  contemplate  with 
any  ease  of  mind  the  notion  of  a  t£te-a-t£te  between 


330        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

her  husband  and  the  heiress.  Millicent  might  turn 
spiteful  any  moment,  she  reflected  with  the  short- 
sightedness styled  worldly  wisdom,  which  sees  its  own 
range  into  every  action.  She  shivered,  reflecting  it. 
Kershaw  would  take  it  horribly,  he  had  such  distorted 
notions  about  things.  He  might,  of  course,  be  sensi- 
ble— he  showed  signs  of  more  sense  than  she  had 
believed  him  to  possess — but  suppose  he  should  upset 
the  whole  arrangement.  It  turned  one  sick  to  think 
about  it.  Then  she  shrugged  her  shoulders,  shifting 
the  consequences.  She  caught  her  breath  with  an 
emotion,  one  half  terror,  one  half  triumph.  Well,  it 
would  be  his  own  fault !  No  one  could  blame  her. 
She  could  not  be  expected  to  live  in  beggary.  As  it 
was,  there  were  bills  she  could  not  meet,  and  had 
begun  to  look  about  in  search  of  means  thereto. 
Things  had  not  seemed  to  cost  so  much  in  the  old 
days  when  father  and  Waldon  and  others  paid  the  bills. 
And  if  Richard  were  likely  to  do  anything  foolish, 
and  cut  off  Millicent's  supplies — well,  well,  what  was 
the  use  of  bothering?  The  secret  was  still  a  secret. 
She  caught  her  bieath  again.  What  a  fool  she  had 
been  to  get  Vaux  to  cash  that  check  for  her.  A  wed- 
ding present  from  Millicent  she  had  told  him.  But 
did  people  always  credit  what  they  were  told?  And 
Vaux  was  as  cute  as  a  weasel.  If  she  had  not  been 
in  pressing  and  immediate  want  of  it,  she  would  rather 
have  cut  off  her  hand  than  have  put  him  on  the  scent. 
But  it  was  the  last  day,  and  the  money  had  to  be  paid 
into  court. 

"Safe  as  the  Bank  of  England,"  people  said  Vaux 
was  where  secrets  were  concerned.  Well,  he  had 
kept  one  or  two  of  hers.  But  the  only  really  safe  way 
in  this  world  was  to  trust  nobody.  She  sat  perturbed, 
recalling  the  glance  Vaux  had  cast  upon  the  check,  as 
he  took  it  without  a  word.  Then  she  suddenly  ground 
her  teeth.  Good  heavens,  what  a  fool — what  a  fool 
she  had  been !  Why,  not  a  month  earlier  she  had  told 
him  Millicent  had  lost  her  money.  She  had  never 
before  known  herself  guilty  of  such  a  discrepancy.  She 
had  always  prided  herself  on  her  consistency  of 


A  VISITOR  TO  POPLAR  VILLA.  331 

explanation  under  the  most  difficult  circumstances. 
Yet  for  the  moment  it  had  slipped  her  memory. 

She  caught  sight  of  herself  in  the  glass.  Well,  well, 
nothing  was  worth  creasing  one's  forehead  over. 
After  all,  Vaux  had  always  shown  himself  discreet, 
and,  in  the  event  of  questions,  Millicent's  equivocal 
position  in  the  affair  was  a  shield  that  promised 
shelter. 

She  called  her  maid,  and  changed  her  gown.  She 
was  not  going  to  let  Kershaw  pay  that  visit  to  Wink- 
worth  by  himself. 


Mrs.  Kew-Barling  was  convalescent ;  but  her  prog- 
ress toward  recovery  was  slow.  There  is  nothing  like 
a  good  sharp  illness  for  restoring  one  to  health.  In 
a  rut  of  routine  we  get  into  the  way  of  slipping 
threads  of  constitution,  and  these  illnesses  send  us  back 
to  pick  up  and  rehabilitate.  So  Mrs.  Barling's  con- 
valescence was  slow ;  there  were  so  many  threads  she 
needed  to  go  back  and  pick  up. 

Kew  had  carried  her  to  the  drawing-room  before 
he  started  for  the  city,  and  she  lay  beside  the  window 
enjoying  the  languor  of  recovery. 

"How  beautiful  it  all  is,"  she  murmured,  yearning 
upon  her  idols  with  wistful,  hollow  eyes;  "and  they 
have  kept  up  the  polish  so  nicely." 

In  a  corner  of  the  recess  consecrated  to  the  great- 
grandmother  there  was  a  cobweb  which  annoyed  her, 
and  the  arrangement  of  the  Worcester  service  left 
more  cracks  and  discolorations  visible  than  when  they 
had  been  put  in  order  by  her  own  hands.  The  focus 
of  her  mind,  however,  had  been  loosed  by  illness  till 
she  found  herself  wondering  and  wondering  again  at 
herself  for  venturing  to  wonder  whether  these  circum- 
stances were  really  of  so  much  account.  And,  after 
all,  the  cracks  in  the  Worcester  were  not  discreditable, 
they  carried  the  family  even  further  back. 

Millicent  had  lifted  the  blind  that  she  might  get 
full  benefit  of  the  sunlight,  and  a  ray  deflected  by  the 


332         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

polish  of  the  sideboard  shot  up  and  played  amid  the 
filmy  traceries  of  the  cobweb. 

For  the  first  time  in  her  decade  of  domesticity  it 
occurred  to  Mrs.  Barling,  lying  idle,  with  her  wasted, 
transparent  hands  folded  in  her  lap,  that  a  cobweb 
was  a  very  wonderful  and  charming  piece  of  workman- 
ship. The  iridescence  of  its  silken  ladders,  the  rhythm 
of  its  filmy  wheels,  regular  to  satisfy  the  mind  with 
the  sense  of  completeness,  yet  with  the  infinitesimal 
touch  of  difference  which  is  all  the  difference  between 
art  and  imitation — the  way  in  which,  attached  at  inter- 
vals to  the  immaculacy  of  her  wall  and  ceiling,  it 
swayed  and  floated  to  imperceptible  air-currents — a 
captive  aerial  wonder.  She  sighed  while  she  longed 
for  a  broom.  For  after  all,  was  it  not  the  daintiest 
bit  of  workmanship  in  lace  about  the  room? 

Her  eyes  dwelt  fondly  on  her  Temple,  lingering 
proudly  on  this  and  on  that  relic,  on  the  melancholy 
harp  and  milking  stool,  the  boomerang  and  Oriental 
kitchen-things,  the  bulrushes  and  whatnots. 

Punch  lay  at  her  feet,  with  an  awed  sense  of  pro- 
faning a  sanctuary,  for  the  drawing-room  of  Poplar 
Villa  had  always  before  been  a  locked  sesame  to  his 
inquiring  mind  and  nostrils.  He  had  now  stolen  in 
on  tiptoe,  tempering  even  the  vigorous  apology  of  a 
tail,  confessing  trespass,  to  the  silence  and  solemnity 
of  the  place.  So  he  had  stood,  with  a  sober  muzzle 
and  entreating  eyes,  beseeching  leave  to  stay. 

"Well,  you  must  be  very,  very  quiet  then,"  Mrs. 
Barling  had  admonished  him,  gravely. 

He  had  snorted  assent,  and  stretching  himself  gin- 
gerly upon  the  fern  leaves  of  the  cherished  carpet, 
had  snapped  his  eyelids  on  the  instincts  of  a  born 
explorer. 

The  baby,  too,  had  spent  some  minutes  with  her, 
but  he  had  discharged  such  a  volley  of  "porters," 
"an"  lambulators, "  "an*  doggies,"  "an'  gee-gees," 
and  other  more  or  less  intelligible  and  emphatic  com- 
ments on  the  marvels  he  had  encountered,  the  perils 
he  had  escaped,  and  the  general  phenomena  of  his 
career  since  last  he  met  her,  that  Millicent  had  speed- 


A  VISITOR  TO  POPLAR  VILLA.  333 

ily  whipped  him  again  from  the  invalid's  lap  and 
deposited  him  with  Parkins. 

"He  has  made  your  head  ache  already, "  she  pro- 
tested. "He  is  perfectly  stentorian." 

"Oh,  how  good  you  are,  dear,"  Mrs.  Barling  fal- 
tered, mopping  her  eyes;  "he  looks  just  the  picture  of 
health,  and  his  legs  are  as  firm  as  iron. ' ' 

Robby  and  Ruby  were  still  with  Mrs.  Malcolm — 
that  good  woman  having  insisted  that  they  were 
better  where  they  were  until  their  mother  should  be 
perfectly  strong  again. 

"I  do  hope  they  are  not  bothering  her,"  the  mother 
said,  perturbed;  "and  who  would  ever  have  thought 
a  person  of  Mrs.  Malcolm's  standing  and  position 
would  take  so  much  trouble  over  them?  It  only  shows 
how  you  may  live  next  door  to  people  all  your  life  and 
never  know  how  kind  they  are." 

She  had  seen  the  children  from  the  window,  they 
having  been  lifted  up  to  throw  kisses  to  her  above 
the  fence.  And  every  morning  three  nosegays  were 
brought  round  with  Mrs.  Malcolm's  compliments  and 
how  was  Mrs.  Kew-Barling,  and  the  children  were 
behaving  very  nicely  indeed.  One  of  the  bunches 
was  an  elaborate  masterpiece  by  Mr.  Snagg,  and 
bore  Mrs.  Malcolm's  card  appended;  another  was  a 
collection  of  the  gaudiest,  most  ill-assorted  colors,  and 
most  pungent  odors,  tightly  and  clumsily  tied  with 
string,  and  bearing  a  tag  with  "Robbie's  love  to  Mrs. 
Kew-Barling,  hoping  mother  is  well,"  inscribed  in  a 
hand  which  said  little  for  Millicent's  talent  for  impart- 
ing penmanship.  Once  on  the  back  was  written  in 
pencil,  "Dear  father,  Mrs.  Malkum  is  a  jollie  brick. 
Don't  let  Punch  run  her  cats  about.  Your  affec.  son, 
Robert  Barling. ' ' 

The  third  nosegay  was  a  singular  assortment,  and 
betrayed,  generally,  no  little  expenditure  of  time  and 
energy.  One  day  it  would  be  a  mass  of  mignonette, 
with  a  fringe  of  dandelions ;  another  day  it  would  be 
a  bunch  of  drooping  daisies ;  another  time  it  was  pars- 
ley and  spring-onion  tops ;  again,  enormous  peonies, 
and  once  potato  foliage  and  groundsel.  To  these 


334        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

would  be  attached  a  slip  of  paper  with  "Ruby  picked 
them  for  mother"  in  Mrs.  Malcolm's  hand. 

There  was  now  a  gay-hued,  gilded  erection  in  the 
garden  of  the  Limes,  and  at  times  a  flushed  excited 
face,  and  frills  and  legs  and  clapping  hands  vaulted 
rhythmically  into  sight  above  the  fence,  then  disap- 
peared to  rise  again  amid  fresh  laughter  and  cries. 

Mrs.  Malcolm  herself  is  swinging  them,  my  dear," 
Mr.  Barling  once  reported  from  his  post  at  the  win- 
dow. 

"Oh,  couldn't  you  bring  her  some  nice  little  present 
from  the  city,  Kew?"  Mrs.  Barling  pleaded,  overcome, 
"a  salmon,  or  some  specially  choice  poultry  or  fruit." 

"Why,  certainly,"  said  Mr.  Barling,  heartily. 

"Don't  you  hope  she  will  call  when  I  am  about 
again?"  Mrs.  Barling  said,  wistfully.  "She  might 
cool  off,  you  know,  dear." 

"Why,  I  thought  we  were  going  back  to  Clapham, 
Molly, ' '  Mr.  Barling  urged,  surprised. 

In  his  practical  way  he  had  regarded  the  matter  as 
settled.  He  had  even  spoken  to  an  agent  about  let- 
ting Poplar  Villa,  and,  more  significant  still,  he  had 
knocked  off  work  a  bit  now  that  the  demands  upon 
him  were  to  be  relaxed,  spending  his  evenings  with 
the  convalescent. 

"Oh,  yes,  dear,"  Mrs.  Barling  agreed,  with  a  catch 
in  her  breath. 


"If  you  please,  'm,"  Parkins  announced,  breaking 
in  breathless  upon  Mrs.  Barling's  reverie,  "shall  I 
fetch  you  anything?  There's  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox's 
carriage  and  pair  a-stopping  at  the  door." 

"Oh,"  cried  Mrs.  Barling,  in  a  flutter,  "I  can  never 
see  her.  I  am  not  fit  to  see  anybody  in  this  shabby 
gown,  and  I  feel  so  weak." 

Her  heart  was  in  her  mouth.  Her  hands  trembled 
so  that  she  dropped  her  handkerchief. 

"Oh,  yes,  you  are,"  Millicent  insisted,  coming  to 
the  rescue.  "You  must  see  her  now  that  she  has 
called.  You  would  be  terribly  sorry  afterward  if  you 


A  VISITOR  TO  POPLAR  VILLA,  335 

were  to  send  her  away.  See !  I  have  brought  you  a 
loose  gown  of  mine.  There  is  plenty  of  time  to  change 
it.  Parkins  shall  first  ask  her  into  the  dining-room 
while  you  drink  a  glass  of  wine." 

"Oh,  I  am  trembling  all  over,"  Mrs.  Barling  fal- 
tered, glancing  at  her  reflection  in  the  glass.  But  she 
folded  the  lace  and  ribbons  of  Millicent's  robe  about 
her  fastidiously  and  with  sparkling  eyes.  "I  don't 
really  feel  strong  enough,  you  know. ' ' 

"Oh,  but  you  must,"  the  governess  maintained. 
"And  you  look  so  nice.  Just  see  how  it  suits  you." 

"It  is  quite  Parisian,"  Mrs.  Barling  cried,  bright- 
ening and  blushing.  "Oh,  how  nice  of  her  to  call. 
And  all  these  years  I  have  been  thinking  her  so 
unkind,"  she  whispered,  as  the  resounding  knock  of 
Mrs.  Askew- Hickox's  footman  thundered  on  the  door. 

Millicent  administered  the  wine.  Mrs.  Barling 
turned  and  kissed  her  affectionately. 

"Oh,  I  am  so  glad  I  didn't  die.  How  proud  I  shall 
be  to  tell  Kew  when  he  comes  home.  After  all,  we 
shall  get  into  Winkworth  society. ' ' 

She  insisted  that  Millicent  should  accompany  her  to 
the  drawing-room. 

"I  declare  I  will  not  go  unless  you  promise,"  she 
said.  "I  feel  quite  timid  by  myself.  You  can  run 
up  quickly  and  change  your  frock. ' ' 

'  'I  will  go  if  you  wish  it, ' '  Millicent  assented,  smil- 
ing. "But  there  is  no  need  to  change  my  gown." 

"Well,  of  course,  she  is  used  to  very  swell  people," 
Mrs.  Barling  said,  glancing  at  Millicent's  sober  coat 
and  skirt. 

They  went  in  together. 

Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  was  examining  the  Lely.     She 
bowed  and  smiled  with  the  formality  of  a  first  call 
which  was  somewhat  of  a  condescension.      She  was. 
handsomely  dressed.     She  held  a"  jeweled  card-case  in 
one  hand. 

"Miss  Millicent  Rivers — my  friend,"  Mrs.  Barling 
said,  prettily,  presenting  the  governess. 

Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  was  very  gracious.  She  even 
extended  her  smile  to  Mrs.  Barling's  friend. 


336        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"I  have  heard  of  you,"  she  said,  sitting  down  beside 
her.  "Mr.  Vaux  was  recently  visiting  us." 

"Yes,"  Millicent  acquiesced.  She  saw  one  bearing 
of  the  situation  in  a  moment.  Had  Mrs.  Askew- 
Hickox  possessed  more  taste,  she  would  have  withheld 
or  would  at  all  events  have  delayed,  this  information. 

Millicent  observed,  to  her  relief,  that  Mrs.  Barling, 
smiling,  elated,  and  chatty,  had  failed  to  gather  any- 
thing beyond  the  momentous  circumstance  that  Poplar 
Villa  had  at  last  secured  its  goal. 

Smiling,  she  moved  to  the  window  to  lower  or 
heighten  a  blind,  leaving  Mrs.  Hickox  no  alternative 
but  to  devote  herself  to  her  hostess. 

Parkins,  in  her  neatest  cap  with  streaming  frilled 
ends,  brought  in  tea  with  the  air  of  a  person  used  to 
wait  on  duchesses  and  not  at  all  abashed  by  a  Mrs. 
Askew- Hickox.  Mrs.  Barling  was  good  to  her  serv- 
ants, and  they  in  return  made  her  interests  theirs. 

The  silver  teapot  and  the  spoons  had  been  rubbed 
up  hastily.  Cook's  sweetheart,  who  happened  to  be 
calling,  had  been  dispatched  for  a  superfine  cake  and 
a  jug  of  cream.  Everything  went  off  admirably.  Mrs. 
Barling  could  have  cried  with  joy  when  she  saw  the 
cake,  iced  and  strewn  with  nonpareils,  come  in  in  her 
pretty  electroplated  basket,  and  found  the  milk- jug 
prove  its  contents  of  the  unctuous  consistency  of 
cream. 

Millicent  had,  during  the  hours  of  leisure  conse- 
quent on  Robby's  and  Ruby's  absence,  worked  a  hand- 
some cloth  and  cosey.  Mrs.  Malcolm's  bouquet  with 
its  frill  of  stamped  paper,  which  gave  it  the  appear- 
ance of  having  been  ordered  at  the  florist's  by  some 
person  above  the  necessity  of  tying  home-made  bou- 
quets, gave  a  refined  and  superior  cachet  to  the  room. 
Kew  had  brought  home  from  the  city  the  previous 
evening  a  satin-quilted  box  of  chocolates,  which,  Iy4ng 
open  on  a  corner  of  the  piano,  lent  a  touch  of  sdvoir 
vivre  and  French  ness  to  the  room. 

Mrs.  Barling's  fluttering  heart,  still  weak  from  the 
effects  of  illness,  fairly  overflowed  with  gratitude  to 
heaven  that  everything  should  be  passing  off  so  well. 


A  VISITOR  TO  POPLAR  VILLA.  337 

Conscious  of  looking  her  best,  and  feeling  that  the 
languor  of  convalescence  was  giving  her  an  air  of  dil- 
letanteism  and  distinction,  she  officiated  at  her  pretty- 
tea-tray,  by  no  means  insensible  to  the  fact  that  Milli- 
cent's  stylish  robe  proclaimed  silk  linings  to  her  every 
movement. 

That  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox  was  as  impressed  as  she 
might  have  been  by  all  the  excellences  of  form  and 
fashion  which  combined  on  that  particular  afternoon 
to  set  Mrs.  Barling's  cup  of  happiness  brimming  over 
I  cannot  pretend.  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox,  being  in  a  set 
both  smart  and  wealthy,  was  accustomed  to  florists' 
bouquets,  Parisian  chocolate  boxes,  tea-coseys,  and 
most  other  things  de  luxe,  and  even  listened  with  an 
ear  grown  haughty  and  unimpressible  by  custom  to 
the  swish  of  silk  foundations.  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox 
came  of  commercial  stock,  and  though  she  entertained 
a  most  becoming  and  superior  contempt  for  all  things 
appertaining  to  trade,  her  hereditary  instinct  traveled 
over  the  possessions  of  her  hostess  in  a  cool,  apprais- 
ing eye.  She  could  have  told  you  the  value  of  most 
things ;  she  could  have  separated  the  home-made  from 
the  shop-made  as  chaff  from  wheat.  Her  imaginative 
sense  perceived  no  mournful  story  of  the  dead  girl- 
mother  clinging  to  the  melancholy  harp;  she  set  it 
down  with  the  boomerang  and  Oriental  kitchen-things 
as  second-hand.  Something  about  Poplar  Villa 
acquainted  her  keen  sense  that  the  Kew-Barlings  were 
not  traveled  persons,  and  she  knew,  with  the  instinct 
which  had  made  her  father  a  successful  speculator, 
that  Mrs.  Kew- Bar  ling's  brussels  carpet  was  only 
"two-ply;"  that  the  velvet  of  her  curtains  was  cotton- 
backed;  and  that  the  resplendent  gilt  and  satin  suite 
had  been  bought  at  an  auction. 

Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  must,  I  suspect,  have  had  a 
certain  amount  of  cleverness  to  discover  all  the  things 
she  did  discover  in  the  course  of  a  twenty-five  min- 
utes' call;  but  there  were  so  many  other  facts  about 
the  Barling  drawing-room — facts  of  devotion  and 
industry  and  heartache — which  escaped  her,  that  I 

22 


338        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

am  inclined  to  think  she  was  after  all  not  so  clever  as 
she  might  have  been. 

To  persons  far  less  penetrating  I  have  known  the 
poor  Temple  to  fairly  sigh  with  aspiration ! 

"I  don't  think  it  could  have  happened  that  year, " 
Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  was  saying,  with  reference  to 
some  notable  Wink  worth  event,  "because  that  season 
I  was  at  the  drawing-room,  and,  with  one  function 
and  another,  was  so  very  gay  that  I  could  not  possibly 
have  found  time  to  give  it  all  the  attention  I  remem- 
ber I  did  give  it.  Now,  do  not  credit  me  with  more 
virtue  than  I  possess, ' '  she  protested  condescendingly. 
"I  confess  it  was  not  all  voluntary.  The  truth  is,  I 
was  literally  dragged  into  it,  Mrs.  Kew-Barling.  I  told 
them  it  was  absolutely  absurd  to  suppose  the  thing 
could  not  have  been  managed  perfectly  without  me." 

"Oh,  I  daresay  they  knew  what  a  help  your  influ- 
ence would  be, ' '  Mrs.  Barling  said,  admiringly.  The 
allusion  to  the  drawing-room,  made  by  one  who  had 
actually  been  there,  seemed  like  a  wreath  laid  on  one 
of  her  drawing-room  altars. 

"You  know  the  Butchers?"  she  submitted,  presently, 
with  diffidence.  The  Butchers  were  the  distant  rela- 
tives of  the  Askew-Hickox,  who  had  notified  to  Mrs. 
Askew  that  their  friends,  the  Kew- Barlings,  were 
migrating  to  Winkworth. 

The  visitor's  smile  contracted. 

"I  have  met  them,"  she  admitted. 

"Oh,  I  thought — "  Mrs.  Barling  begun,  then  tact- 
fully sheered  off  into  another  subject.  It  was  plain 
Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  was  not  ecstatically  keen  on  claim- 
ing kinship  with  the  Butchers. 

"Do  you  take  cream  and  sugar?"  Mrs.  Barling  inter- 
rogated, hospitably. 

"No  sugar,"  (why  do  persons  aiming  toward  smart- 
ness invariably  say  no  to  sugar?)  "and  very  little 
cream,  please.  I  suppose  you  know  Mr.  Vaux's  peo- 
ple well,  Miss  Rivers?" 

"I   lived   near  them  for  some  months,"   Millicent 
returned.     ' '  Lady  Crossley  is  a  very  energetic  person 
She  finds  time  to  know  everybody. ' ' 


A  VISITOR  TO  POPLAR  VILLA.  339 

"Indeed,"  Mrs.  Askew  said.  She  would  have  given 
much  to  ask  in  what  capacity  Millicent  had  known 
her.  There  was  a  quiet  air  of  ease  about  the  govern- 
ess, which  confirmed  what  Vaux  had  said.  But  how, 
why,  wherefore  had  an  heiress  and  a  person  in  Lady 
Crossley's  set  come  to  dwell  in  Poplar  Villa?  Mrs. 
Askew  fairly  tingled  with  inquisitiveness.  However, 
smartness,  as  noblesse,  has  its  obligations.  There  are 
things  one  may  not  ask  in  so  many  words. 

' '  I  hope  we  shall  see  something  of  you, ' '  she  smiled. 
"My  daughter  Gwendolen  is  an  indefatigable  tennis- 
player.  Perhaps  you  will  come  up  some  afternoon 
and  join  her  in  a  set.  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  will  spare 
you,  I  am  sure. ' ' 

' '  You  are  very  good, ' '  Millicent  said. 

"Your  home  is  in  Roldermere,  I  suppose?"  contin- 
ued Mrs.  Hickox. 

"My  home  was,"  Millicent  returned;  "at  present  it 
is  here. ' '  She  turned  to  Mrs.  Barling,  who  was  feel- 
ing somewhat  in  the  cold. 

"Ah,  I  was  thinking  of  your  own  people,"  Mrs. 
Askew- Hickox  persisted,  heedless  of  Mrs.  Barling's 
temperature. 

"I  am  an  orphan,"  Millicent  said.  "My  only  rela- 
tives are  very  distant  cousins." 

Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  realized  that  her  quest  had 
failed  for  this  occasion ;  Millicent's  manner  was  emi- 
nently pleasant,  but  distinctly  uncommunicative. 

"Well,"  she  said,  effusively,  "you  must  come  up  to 
tennis.  Gwendolen  will  be  delighted  to  know  you. 
You  will  be  at  the  Densmore's  garden  fete  on  the 
seventh,  I  suppose,  Mrs.  Kew-Barling?" 

"I  think  not,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  responded,  slowly. 
She  glanced  at  Millicent.  She  was  rather  ashamed  of 
not  confessing  that  the  Densmores  were  unknown  to 
her.  Yet  Mrs.  Hickox  so  obviously  took  her  acquaint- 
ance with  them  as  a  matter  of  course. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mrs.  Hickox  knew  perfectly 
well  that  Mrs.  Barling  was  not  included  in  the  Dens- 
more's invitation  list. 

She  smiled,  however,  confidentially. 


340        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"To  tell  the  truth,"  she  said,  "I  think  you  are  right. 
The  Densmore's  parties  are  a  little — "  she  paused. 
The  pause  and  blank  implied  that  the  Densmore's 
parties  were  not  altogether '  up  to  Mrs.  Askew-Hick- 
ox's  form;  but  she  did  not  commit  herself  to  words. 
"It  is  a  pity,"  she  added.  "They  are  quite  well-bred 
people,  though  they  do  live  so  far  away  from  one.  I 
wonder  they  do  not  move  to  this  end  of  the  town. " 

"Rents  up  here  are  rather  heavy,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barl- 
ing  said,  with  a  grave  line  in  her  face. 

"I  suppose  they  are,"  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  admit- 
ted, with  the  air  of  a  person  who  has  never  needed  to 
resolve  the  supposition  into  a  fact.  "What  a  charm- 
ing picture.  After  Gainsborough  or  Sir  Joshua,  I 
suppose?" 

"No,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  said,  proudly,  "it  is  a 
Lely.  She  is  one  of  Mr.  Kew-Barling's  ancestresses." 

"Indeed,"  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  said,  a  little  nettled. 
The  Askew-Hickox  had  a  portrait  gallery,  but  so  far 
no  ancestors  to  put  in  it.  "The  dress  is  curious.  She 
was  not  an  actress?" 

"Oh,  no,"  Mrs.  Barling  protested,  hastily.  "They 
were  extremely  nice  people.  It  is  merely  fancy  dress 
— a  Grace,  or  a  Muse,  or  something. ' ' 

Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  deserted  the  ancestress. 

' '  So  delightful  to  have  a  change  in  the  ministry, ' ' 
she  said.  "Mr.  Askew-Hickox  was  dining  the  other 
day  with  dear  Lord  Salisbury,  and  he  tells  me  he 
looked  absolutely  beaming. ' ' 

"We  saw  his  name,"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  said.  "It 
must  have  been  a  magnificent  banquet." 

Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  stiffened  the  fractional  part  of 
a  social  inch.  She  cast  one  glance  into  her  hostess' 
face.  But  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  was  absolutely  guileless 
of  any  intention  to  belittle  Mr.  Askew-Hickox  in  his 
dining  relations  with  Lord  Salisbury.  She  did  not 
distinguish  very  clearly  between  dining  with  the 
Premier  at  a  city  banquet  and  dining  with  the  Premier 
in  Downing  Street. 

Her  ingenuous  face  exonerated  her,  though  Mrs. 
Askew-Hickox  would  have  thought  more  of  her  from 


A  VISITOR  TO  POPLAR  VILLA.  341 

the  standpoint  of  smartness  had  her  remark  been 
made  with  malice  aforethought,  rather  than,  as  it  was, 
in  the  odor  of  social  simplicity. 

"Such  gowns  they  are  wearing  in  Paris!"  Mrs. 
Askew-Hickox  observed.  "Mr.  Askew-Hickox  and  I 
and  my  daughter  ran  over  for  a  week  to  escape  a  big, 
tiresome  function.  They  are  positively  trying  to  intro- 
duce magenta  again. ' ' 

"Hideous!"  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  exclaimed. 

"I  think  so.  But  my  daughter  Gwendolen  insisted 
on  buying  a  hat  of  that  color  at  Worth's  for  Henley. 
She  spends  Henley  week  with  Sir  Anthony  and  Lady 
Hoskins.  She  is  such  a  girl  for  modes.  For  myself, 
I  do  not  see  that  one  need  mind  being  a  week  or  two 
behind  Paris." 

Mrs.  Barling  shook  her  head  sagaciously. 

"Girls  like  to  be  up  to  date,"  she  said,  as  one  who 
had  reaped  in  her  time  a  sheaf  of  London  seasons,  with 
all  their  corollaries  of  drawing-rooms,  state  concerts, 
and  other  fashionable  functions,  and  for  which  Mr. 
Worth  or  his  British  counterpart  had  duly  equipped 
her.  "Miss  Askew-Hickox  is  very  handsome,"  she 
added,  with  genuine  admiration. 

"She  is  much  admired,"  her  mother  acquiesced, 
without  elation,  as  one  who  regarded  it  as  only  due  to 
her  that  her  daughter  should  be  handsome  and  ad- 
mired. 

"Would  it  bother  you  to  see  my  baby?"  Mrs.  Barl- 
ing submitted,  shyly.  "He  is  growing  such  a  fine  lit- 
tle fellow.  He  shall  come  in  for  only  a  minute  or 
two. " 

"I  shall  be  charmed,"  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  said.  "I 
am  quite  fond  of  infants.  But  I  was  not  aware  you 
had  a  nursery." 

"Oh,  yes,"  Mrs.  Barling  said,  disappointed.  It  hurt 
her  to  think  that  the  beauty  of  Robby  and  Ruby  had 
been  lost  on  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox.  "You  must  have 
seen  them  about,"  she  urged.  "My  little  Ruby  has 
golden  curls  and  wears  a  velvet  Dutch  bonnet;  and 
Robby  has  large  dark  eyes,  and  is  dressed  in  sailor 
suits." 


342        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

.  "Ah!"  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  said,  with  a  fixed  smile 
and  absent  gaze. 

Parkins,  instructed,  brought  in  the  melancholy  baby. 
His  face  was  ashine  and  flushed  with  recent  soap,  his 
hair  curled  in  damp  rings  to  the  impress  of  a  hasty 
brush  round  cook's  substantial  finger.  He  wore  his 
best  frock  and  latest  set  of  ribbons. 

Mrs.  Barling  shot  one  grateful  glance  at  Parkins. 

"Bring  him  to  mother,"  she  said,  holding  out  her 
arms.  "Now,  say  how  d'you  do  prettily  to  lady,  dar- 
ling." 

But  the  baby  shrank  into  her  arms,  fixing  a  look 
of  inquiry  and  hostility  upon  the  visitor. 

Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  extended  a  hand  encased  in 
black  suede  kid.  But  the  baby  was  not  accustomed  to 
society,  and  he  did  not  understand  black  hands.  He 
shrank  still  further  back,  and  pushed  the  hand  away. 

"  'T's  my  mummy,"  he  said,  jealously,  "  'tisn't  oor 
mummy. ' ' 

"Dear  me,"  said  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox,  "how  plainty 
it  speaks.  Is  it  a  boy  or  a  girl?" 

"A  boy.  I  have  two  boys,  "  Mrs.  Barling  informed 
her  proudly.  "Say  'how  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Askew- 
Hickox,'  darling." 

The  baby  nestled  his  head  against  his  mother's 
shoulder,  he  bored  one  temple  into  the  breast  of  her 
gown,  fixed  the  visitor  with  a  glance  from  beneath  his 
lids,  and,  stuffing  a  hand  into  his  mouth,  ventured 
bashfully : 

"Do,  Keekox?" 

Then,  in  a  burst  of  confidence,  he  thrust  his  feet 
from  beneath  his  frock. 

"Noo  soos,"  he  announced. 

"How  remarkably  plainly  he  speaks,"  murmured 
"Keekox."  "What  does  he  say?" 

"Oh,  I  am  afraid  he  is  very  vain,"  Mrs.  Barling 
said.  ' '  He  wants  you  to  notice  his  new  shoes. ' ' 

"Beautiful  new  shoes,"  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox 
observed,  in  the  conventional  falsetto  adapted  by  the 
very  large  class  of  persons  who  regard  infants  as 
fools. 


A  VISITOR  TO  POPLAR  VILLA.  343 

Leaning  forward,  she  tapped  his  shiny  cheek  with 
a  kid  forefinger. 

The  baby  detected  the  lack  of  sincerity  about  her 
adjective  and  tone.  He  retreated  sullenly  before  the 
forefinger.  He  drew  his  unappreciated  shoes  beneath 
his  frock  again. 

"Don't,  Keekox, "  he  said,  snappishly.  He  slid 
down  from  his  mother's  lap,  and,  ambling  headlong 
back  to  Parkins  waiting  in  the  doorway,  tugged  her 
by  the  skirts. 

"Home!"  he  commanded.  By  "home"  he  intended 
rooms  and  persons  he  knew  better  than  the  drawing- 
room  and  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox. 

"So  interesting  children  are, "  observed  Mrs.  Askew 
Hickox,  rising.  "I  am  at  home  on  Saturdays,  Miss 
Rivers;  we  generally  have  a  few  young  people  to 
tennis.  If  you  could  come  next  Saturday  or  the  Sat- 
urday after — ?  You  will  find  me  in  most  days,  Mrs. 
Ke\v-Barling,  after  five,  or  say,  half-past  five,  in  case 
I  should  have  calls  to  make.  You  will  be  at  Homburg 
with  the  rest  of  us  later,  I  suppose?  Good — " 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  had  risen  with  a  disappointed 
air.  It  seemed  to  her  as  though  her  visitor  had  only 
just  arrived.  And  she  had  no  sense  of  having  reached 
the  cordial  relations  with  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox  her 
long-cherished  admiration  for  that  lady  had  moved  her 
to  count  on. 

But  at  that  moment  the  door  was  flung  wide,  and 
Parkins  announced,  in  a  voice  fairly  bursting  with 
vain-gloriousness : 

"Major  and  Lady  Alicia  Ker shore." 


344  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

CHAPTER   XXXVI. 

MORE  VISITORS. 

Sometimes  along  the  gloom 

We  meet  a  traveler,  striking  hands  with  whom 

Maketh  a  little  sweet  and  tender  light 

To  bless  our  sight, 

And  change  the  clouds  around  us  and  above 

Into  celestial  shapes — and  this  is  love. 

Millicent  stood  up  with  a  face  gone  suddenly  white 
like  paper.  For  one  moment  her  eyes  sprang  to  his 
and  clove  there.  Ah,  was  ever  any  man  like  unto 
him?  Then  her  soul  fell  upon  his  neck  and  wept  for 
the  grave  misery  and  disillusion  written  there. 

She  could  have  spurned  the  pink  and  smiling  cheek 
uplifted  to  her.  Was  all  her  sacrifice  for  nothing? 
Was  nothing  to  come  out  of  anything  they  might  do 
but  smiling  self-satisfaction  and  serenity  to  this  fair 
selfishness?  The  strain  of  her  soul  drew  his  eyes  to 
her.  He  saw  her  no  longer  a  mere,  fresh-faced  girl. 
— Love  and  suffering  had  made  a  woman  of  her. 

He  exchanged  a  few  words  with  Mrs.  Barling,  bowed 
to  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox,  and,  returning,  sat  down 
beside  Millicent  with  the  content  of  long  friendship. 

"It  is  so  nice  of  you,"  she  said,  with  lips  that  would 
not  be  controlled.  Then  they  spoke  of  Lady  Kershaw, 
and  things  friendly  and  familiar  at  Roldermere. 

Alicia  had,  with  well-bred  grace,  attached  herself 
to  Mrs.  Barling.  One  might  have  thought  she  had 
known  her  a  life-time.  Mrs.  Barling  found  herself 
all  in  a  moment  at  her  ease.  The  stiffness  and  con- 
straint she  had  experienced  with  Mrs.  Hickox  van- 
ished. She  found  herself  translated  to  an  atmosphere 
of  gracious  and  agreeable  appreciation.  The  earl's 
daughter  had  a  score  of  natural  easy  ways  of  banishing 
to  the  background  the  circumstance  that  she  was  the 
daughter  of  an  earl.  Mrs.  Barling  lost  absolute  con- 
sciousness of  her  silk  linings  and  the  florist's  paper 


MORE  VISITORS.  345 

frill.  In  the  atmosphere  of  Alicia's  friendly  natural- 
ness, she  would  not  even  have  been  ashamed  had  the 
cream-jug  contained  merely  milk. 

"Such  a  charming  Lely,"  Alicia  said,  indicating  the 
great-grandmother.  She  did  not  profess  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  art ;  but  they  had  Lelys  in  the  portrait  gallery 
at  home,  and  she  recognized  the  artist. 

"It  is  an  ancestress  of  Mr.  Kew-Barling,"  Mrs. 
Kew-Barling  said,  diffidently.  The  necessity  for 
asserting  the  Kew-Barling  dignity  had  slipped  into 
the  background  with  Alicia's  rank. 

In  the  meantime  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  had  sat  down 
again.  When  Parkins,  now  with  flushed  cheek  and  a 
subdued  but  triumphant  air,  brought  fresh  tea,  she 
pushed  her  cup  forward. 

' '  I  am  tempted  to  ask  for  some  more  of  your  deli- 
cious tea,  Mrs.  Kew-Barling,"  she  said,  graciously. 

"Mrs.  Askew-Hickox — Lady  Alicia  Kershaw, "  Mrs. 
Barling  said,  doing  the  honors  as  prettily  as  might  be. 

"I  have  heard  my  friend,  Mr.  Vaux,  speak  often  of 
you,  Lady  Alicia,"  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  observed,  with 
a  smile  unknown  to  Winkworth. 

Lady  Alicia  nodded. 

"Vaux  of  Hinton,  you  mean.  Capital  man.  Such 
gay  spirits.  We  see  a  good  deal  of  him. ' ' 

"I  suppose  you  were  at  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire's 
ball  the  other  night,"  Mrs.  Askew  proceeded  impress- 
ively, stirring  her  tea.  "A  friend  of  mine  who  was 
there  tells  me  the  floral  decorations  were  charming." 

"No,"  Alicia  returned,  sending  a  keen,  leisurely 
glance  over  her  interlocutor.  "We  were  not  there. 
We  are  very  rustic  people,  my  husband  and  I.  When 
we  are  not  in  our  study  we  are  growing  cabbages." 

"Dear  me,"  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  exclaimed.  "Is  it 
not  rather  a — may  I  say — an  eccentric  taste?" 

"I  suppose  it  is,"  Alicia  assented,  laughing;  "but 
it  pays.  One  needs  to  be  thrifty  in  these  hard  times. ' ' 

"Depression  in  land,"  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  submit- 
ted, sympathetically. 

"Lack  of  it!"  Alicia  retorted,  smiling,  as  she  turned 
back  to  her  hostess. 


346        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW 

Lady  Alicia,  in  her  smart  and  faultless  gown,  cried 
poverty  with  such  an  air  that  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox, 
who  had  always  regarded  anything  approaching  insuf- 
ficiency as  being  the  worst  form  possible,  made  a 
mental  note  of  it  that  restricted  means,  elegantly 
gowned  and  charmingly  confessed,  might  lend  a  very 
dainty  and  aristocratic  tone  to  things. 

She  drank  her  tea  slowly,  joining  the  conversation 
with  her  most  cordial  manner,  listening  all  the  while 
eagerly  for  some  explanation  of  this  most  unforeseen 
of  acquaintanceships.  She  guessed  shrewdly  that  the 
Kershaws  were  primarily  Millicent'  s  friends ;  but,  this 
being  so,  she  could  not  understand  why  Lady  Alicia 
should  take  so  many  pains  to  be  pleasant  to  a  person 
so  altogether  average  as  was  Mrs.  Kew-Barling.  It 
seemed  to  her  so  obviously  the  thing,  and  she  had  her- 
self proved  it  so  simple,  to  set  the  little  woman  in  her 
place.  But  the  Lady  Alicia  was  as  friendly  and  sim- 
ple with  the  mistress  of  Poplar  Villa  as  she  might 
have  been  with  any  duchess.  There  are  wheels  within 
wheels  here,  Mrs.  Hickox  decided,  scenting  a  mystery. 
That  the  Lady  Alicia  was  merely  fulfilling  the  tradi- 
tions of  her  class  in  being  civil  to  her  hostess  did  not 
occur  to  her.  In  the  code  of  amenities  Mrs.  Askew- 
Hickox  professed  there  were  degrees  of  civility,  and 
Poplar  Villa  had  not  seemed  to  her  to  call  for  any- 
thing like  blood-heat  on  the  thermometer  of  manners. 
Plainly  there  was  a  mystery. 

Mrs.  Kew-Barling  reached  a  seventh  heaven  of  civ- 
ilized delight  on  this  occasion.  The  major  was  so 
handsome  and  fine-mannered,  he  took  his  tea  at  her 
hands  and  passed  the  cake-basket  with  an  air  so  pre- 
eminently distinguished,  and  sat  down  in  her  little 
drawing-room  with  a  mien  of  such  deferential  formal- 
ity so  different  from  the  easy  affability  of  Kew's 
friends,  who  had  a  jest  for  her  or  some  facetious  ban- 
ter at  their  tongue-ends  two  moments  after  introduc- 
tion. They  were  good  fellows,  she  knew,  and  mistook 
chaff  for  the  bread  of  conversation ;  but  Mrs.  Barling 
had  a  pretty  and  refined  taste.  The  major  sat  bolt 
upright  and  a  little  stiffly  on  one  of  the  blue  satin 


MORE  VISITORS.  347 

chairs.  He  bowed  squarely,  and  did  not  loll  or  lounge, 
nor  address  her  in  the  free-and-easy,  let's-dispense- 
with-ceremony  fashion  of  many  of  her  husband's 
friends.  And  the  Lady  Alicia  was  so  gracious  and 
charming  (she  took  sugar  to  the  number  of  two  lumps 
and  pleaded  prettily  for  more  cream),  and  Mrs.  Barl- 
ing found  so  many  things  to  say.  She  was  proud  that 
Mrs.  Askew-Hickox  should  see  her  comporting  herself 
so  easily  with  the  daughter  of  an  earl,  proud  that  Mrs. 
Hickox  should  meet  this  daughter  of  an  earl  on  the 
occasion  of  her  first  visit.  She  would  naturally  con- 
clude that  these  were  the  normal  guests  of  Poplar  Villa. 
She  became  quite  condescending  in  her  manner  to  her 
first  guest — gracefully  so,  however,  and  with  a  little 
air  of  asserting  the  dignity  which  had  suffered  before 
her  second  installment  of  visitors  came  in. 

And  with  it  all  her  pulses  were  throbbing  proudly 
in  her  throat,  wondering  what  Kew  would  say  when 
she  should  tell  him.  The  heavens  might  have  fallen 
so  far  as  any  further  zenith  in  life  concerned  her,  if 
only  Kew  had  come  in  before  they  left.  He  was  so 
good-looking,  and  when  he  liked  had  such  manly,  nat- 
ural manners  that  she  was  thoroughly  proud  of  him. 

And  then  Mrs.  Askew-Hickox,  having  already  tres- 
passed too  long  on  the  conventions  shackling  time, 
was  compelled  to  rise  and  leave. 

' '  If  you  would  care  to  come  on  Saturday  with  Miss 
Rivers,"  she  said,  shaking  hands  with  her  hostess 
with  marked  cordiality,  ' '  I  shall  be  charmed.  Indeed, 
I  hope  you  will  come  then,  as  nearly  any  other  day  I 
am  liable  to  be  out.  And  I  am  dying  to  see  your  baby 
again.  He  is  sweet.  Good-by.  Good-by,  Lady 
Alicia.  Good-by,  Miss  Rivers,  and  we  shall  expect 
you,  without  fail,  on  Saturday!" 

She  bowed  to  the  major  as  he  held  the  door  for  her, 
and  the  faithful  Parkins,  waiting  in  the  hall  to  show 
her  out,  showed  her  out  with  a  style  of  which  she  had 
never  believed  herself  capable — before  she  had  shown 
in  a  lady  of  title,  Parkins'  mind,  at  that  moment,  was 
informed  by  a  serial  story  she  was  reading,  entitled, 
"The  Viscount's  Surrender;  or,  The  Proud  Parlor- 


348        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

maid,"  and  she  knew  that  the  Lady  Alicia,  like  the 
Lady  Sarah,  who  was  the  unsuccessful  rival  of  the 
parlormaid,  called  her  father  "earl." 

"You  must  give  this  up,  Millicent,"  Kershaw  said, 
gravely.  "You  have  'lived,'  as  you  call  it — and  it 
plainly  does  not  suit  you.  I  should  scarcely  have 
known  you,  you  are  so  changed. ' ' 

"I  am  well,"  Millicent  maintained,  "and  happy 
enough.  Mrs.  Barling  has  been  very  ill,  and  we  were 
anxious.  Generally,  I  have  an  easy  time." 

"You  must  give  it  up,"  he  insisted.  "It  must  be 
an  intolerable  life!" 

"I  am  at  least  useful,"  she  said.  "I  live  for  some- 
thing more  than  my  own  amusement.  There  is  inter- 
est in  it;  I  take  the  baby  for  a  ride,  I  teach  the 
children  spelling,  and  I  am  learning  quite  an  amount 
of  geography." 

"These  things  don't  seem  to  make  you  happy,"  he 
said,  noting  her  face. 

"Happy,"  she  retorted.  She  caught  her  breath. 
She  scanned  his  face.  "Is  anybody  happy?  You,  for 
instance?  I  may  equally  accuse  you  of  being  serious. " 

"When  was  I  anything  else?  I  am  a  writer  of  other 
people's  stories." 

"When  I  last  saw  you,"  she  affirmed,  "you  had  a 
story  of  your  own. ' ' 

He  got  up  and  set  down  his  cup. 

"Why,  of  course,"  he  said,  reseating  himself,  "and 
so  I  have  now. ' ' 

His  eyes  sought  Alicia,  chatting  animatedly  with 
Mrs.  Barling.  She  was  like  a  sublimated  fashion- 
plate.  She  wore  dove-color — but  there  were  no  white 
linings  to  it ;  and  had  there  been,  he  knew  better  now 
than  to  read  them  into  her  soul. 

His  looks  returned  to  Millicent.  There  was  nothing 
superlative  about  her.  In  her  fatigue  and  pallor  she 
was  scarcely  pretty.  But  he  realized,  for  the  first  time 
in  their  acquaintance,  that  she  was  eminently  lovable. 
She  was  quiet  and  strong.  There  were  depth  and 
frankness  in  her  eyes;  her  mouth  was  at  the  same 
time  firm  and  tender;  there  was  scorn  of  the  ignoble 


MORE  VISITORS.  349 

in  her  straight  brows.  And  he  was  so  sick  of  noise, 
and  tricks,  and  insincerity;  so  weary  of  chatter,  and 
gowns,  and  social  patter.  How  a  man  might  make  a 
friend  of  this  woman,  he  thought,  and  was  astounded 
to  detect  himself  so  thinking.  Why,  they  had  never 
been  particularly  attached  to  one  another — he  and 
she.  Indeed,  they  had  had  more  than  one  breeze  dur- 
ing her  stay  at  the  Towers.  He  had  never  spared 
her  much  attention  till  that  morning  when  he  had 
driven  her  to  the  station.  The  house  seemed  different 
after  she  had  gone.  But  then  everything  had  been 
different. 

For  the  time,  he  was  sated  with  sex.  Alicia  knew 
nothing  else.  Her  talk  was  forever  of  intrigue ;  of 
shifts  whereby  her  power  of  beauty  might  make  bar- 
gains with  a  weaker  gender;  of  toilettes,  and  arts,  and 
wiles — all  sex  in  its  flimsiest  and  most  unworthy 
aspects.  He  was  weary  of  her  self-indulgent  kisses, 
which  held  nothing  of  tenderness  nor  even  of  affec- 
tion in  them. 

Sex  in  Alicia,  he  thought,  as  writers  are  apt  to  think 
— in  metaphor — was  a  mere  weed  running  riot  till  it 
choked  her.  And  the  weed,  superficially  charming, 
was  rank  at  the  roots. 

What  a  friend  this  true-eyed  girl  of  the  clear  look, 
firm,  wholesome  mouth,  and  well-balanced  nature, 
might  make. 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life  the  full  beauty  and 
essentialness  of  friendship  between  men  and  women 
was  borne  in  upon  him.  In  one  moment  he  per- 
ceived that  without  this,  love  were  unworthy  of  the 
name.  Alicia  had  taught  him  so  much ! 

"You  have  grown  most  terrible  serious,"  Millicent 
said,  wistfully.  "You  have  sat  frowning  for  nearly 
five  minutes  without  saying  a  word. " 

"I  was  thinking,"  he  returned,  forcing  a  smile. 
"But  now  you  must  tell  me  what  you  are  going  to  do. 
You  cannot  continue  like  this.  Will  you  come  home 
with  us?" 

"Home?"  she  repeated,  breathlessly. 


350         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"To  the  Towers.  Come,  for  a  change,  at  least. 
Do  you  know  you  are  looking  terribly  ill?" 

"I  am  well,"  she  answered,  steadfastly.  "I  am 
only  a  little  tired." 

"Will  you  come  for  a  while — until  you  can  make 
other  arrangements?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

"I  have  chosen  my  life.  I  must  have  something  to 
do.  I  am  not  unhappy.  " 

"You  ought  to  be  happy.  " 

"Why,  so  we  all  ought,"  she  said,  ruefully. 

"I  shall  set  the  mother  to  talk  to  you,"  was  all  he 
could  say. 

Mrs.  Barling  presently  withdrawing,  in  order  that 
Millicent  might  be  alone  with  her  friends,  "I  want  to 
say  two  words  to  Alicia,"  Millicent  said. 

"For  goodness  sake,  don't  leave  me,  Richard," 
that  delectable  creature  cried.  "She  is  going  to  scold. 
Stay  and  protect  your  helpless  helpmeet.  She  looks 
appallingly  bellicose." 

Millicent  showed  him  the  rustic  stairway  leading  to 
the  garden. 

"I  will  not  wholly  demolish  her,"  she  promised, 
laughing.  "The  door  will  be  unlocked,  so  that  if  you 
hear  cries  you  can  come  to  the  rescue. " 

When  he  had  gone  she  no  longer  laughed.  She 
crossed  the  room  swiftly,  and  putting  two  firm  hands 
on  Alicia's  silk-puffed  shoulders,  held  her  resolutely. 

"Why  haven't  you  made  him  happy?"  she  demanded. 

Alicia  quailed  a  little,  but  evading  her  assailant's 
angry  looks  she  shook  herself  peevishly  beneath  her 
hands. 

"Don't  be  ridiculous,"  she  retorted.  "I  married 
him." 

"He  thought  all  the  world  of  you.  He  expected 
everything  in  marrying  you.  With  a  little  unselfish- 
ness and  care  you  might  have  made  him  happy. ' ' 

"What  nonsense!"  his  wife  protested.  "Do  you 
suppose  I  was  going  to  spend  my  life  sitting  on  a  ped- 
estal? If  he  wanted  to  go  on  believing  me  a  saint,  he 
should  have  left  me  to  marry  somebody  else.  I 


MORE  VISITORS.  35 1 

warned  him  I  should  be  a  shock  to  him.  He'll  get 
over  it  presently.  We  are  beginning  to  rub  along 
well  enough." 

"He  looks  ten  years  older.  He  looks  neglected  and 
miserable. " 

Alicia  laughed — a  scoffing  laugh. 

"Neglected!  Hear  her!  Do  you  suppose  I  can 
comb  his  hair,  and  patch  his  clothes?  Has  he  got 
holes  in  his  boots?  Really,  Millicent,  it  is  indecent 
for  you  to  confess  your  fondness  for  another  woman's 
husband  in  the  way  you  do — to  say  nothing  of  the 
absurdity  of  bewailing  the  distresses  of  a  man  of 
Richard's  size  and  age.  You  make  him  ridiculous — 
only  fit  to  wrap  in  cotton  wool  and  rock  in  a  cradle." 

"He  is  my  cousin,  "  Millicent  insisted;  "and  I  do  not 
profess  not  to  care  for  him.  I  don't  care  for  him" — 
she  blushed  and  hurried  the  words  over — "in  any  way 
to  be  ashamed  of. ' ' 

Alicia  scoffed  again.  She  shook  out  her  sleeves, 
recovering  her  composure. 

"Oh,  I  know,"  she  cried,  derisively,  "you  are  not 
like  any  other  flesh-and-blood  woman. ' ' 

"I  have  never  pretended  to  be  anything  better," 
the  girl  demurred,  hotly.  "But  there  is  no  shame  in 
being  a  flesh-and-blood  woman." 

"Well,  you  can't  persuade  me,"  Alicia  said,  with 
a  curled  lip,  "that  love  is  any  very  high  falutin'  thing, 
any  more  than  you  can  persuade  me  that  your  love  for 
Richard  is  something  entirely  in  the  clouds,  and  that 
you  wouldn't  like  to  kiss  him,  for  example." 

"I  have  never  said  anything  about  clouds,"  Milli- 
cent asserted,  sullenly. 

"Oh!  then  it  isn't  so  celestial,  this  devotion  of 
yours,"  Alicia  urged;  "and  you  would  like  to  kiss 
him." 

The  girl  turned  her  crimson,  miserable  face  away. 

"Would  you  like  to  kiss  Richard?"  her  tormentor 
persisted. 

This  weapon  of  Millicent's  love  was  a  weapon  for 
good  service.  If  Millicent  had  a  secret  to  be  kept, 
why  had  not  Alicia  likewise? 


352        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Would  you?"  she  demanded  again. 

The  heiress  wrenched  her  face  round  with  a  frank 
defiance.  She  looked  the  other  straight  between  the 
brows. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  honestly,  "I  would." 

"No  doubt,"  Alicia  sneered.  "And  do  you  find  it 
a  very  exalted  desire?" 

Millicent  gazed  at  her  with  eyes  mistily  introspect- 
ive. Her  mind,  in  the  energy  of  confession,  had  bro- 
ken loose  from  convention  and  was  free  among  her 
emotions. 

"It  is  a  power  greater  than  I  am,"  she  said.  "It  is 
too  large  and  strong  and — and  tender  to  have  any 
shame  in  it.  Unworthy  things  always  seem  smaller 
than  oneself. ' ' 

Alicia  sat  staring  at  her.  She  shifted  uneasily  in 
her  chair. 

"I  think  you  must  be  ill,"  she  said,  perplexed. 
You  do  look  thin.  You  don't  seem  at  all  as  you  used 
to  be." 

She  remained  staring  at  her  during  a  constrained 
silence.  If  Millicent  should  die — she  looked  so  white 
and  drawn,  and  talked  so  strangely — if  she  should 
die,  what  would  become  of  supplies?  That  was  a 
thought  to  perturb  one.  Moreover,  so  far  as  her  shal- 
low soul  could  hold  pity  for  another,  she  was  sorry 
for  Millicent.  The  girl  had  behaved  generously,  and 
seemed  really  fond  of  Richard. 

"Look  here,  Mill,"  she  said,  with  a  sudden  altru- 
istic impulse,  "if  you  feel  like  that  about  it,  you  can 
kiss  him  if  you  like.  I'm  not  a  scrap  jealous." 

Millicent  came  back  to  the  realities  like  one  struck. 
The  blood  rushed  over  her  face. 

"Oh,  for  shame,  for  shame,"  she  cried,  distressed. 
"Do  you  not  understand  anything  about  a  woman's 
feelings?" 

Alicia  shrugged  her  shoulders,  as  one  abandoning  a 
problem. 

"I  ought  to,"  she  retorted,  "considering  that  I  am 
a  woman.  Millicent,  you  ought  to  see  a  doctor.  You 
are  horribly  hysterical.  You  will  and  you  won't,  there 


MORE  VISITORS.  353 

is  no  explaining  you.  Now,  I  suppose,  for  a  change 
you  are  going  to  start  scolding  again." 

But  Millicent  had  no  heart  to  scold.  That  secret  of 
hers  was  one  wherewith  Alicia  had  power  to  scourge 
her. 

"You  haven't  been  flirting  or  anything  of  that  kind 
to  vex  him?"  she  suggested,  wearily. 

' '  I  have  been  most  exemplary ;  I  have  only  insisted 
on  having  my  way.  When  we  have  quarreled,  I  have 
kissed  and  made  it  up  again.  We  are  incompatibles, 
and  presently  we  shall  settle  out  of  the  matrimonial 
mixture  into  our  component  parts,  like  oil  and  vinegar. 
And  people  will  say  how  well  we  agree,  because  we 
shall  have  ceased  to  imagine  we  can't  differ." 

"I  hear  no  cries  of  distress,"  Kershaw  called  from 
the  foot  of  the  stairway;  "I  have  given  you  nearly 
twenty  minutes. ' ' 

"Oh,  you  may  come  in,"  Alicia  cried,  relieved,  for 
Millicent  had  not  taken  her  very  seriously  to  task. 
Money  matters — and  that  was  the  main  point — had 
not  been  touched  upon.  "The  girl  is  scolding  me 
because  I  neglect  you,"  she  added,  with  a  malicious 
gleam  at  her  rival.  "I  am  talking  sense  to  her.  I 
tell  her  marriage  is  no  superlative  ecstatic  state,  it  is 
only  the  mean  of  two  average  persons — I  call  that 
epigrammatic  and  smart.  You  may  annex  it  for  your 
coming  book,  Richard." 

"One  can  imagine  it  the  sum  or  even  the  multiple 
of  two  persons,"  he  said,  gravely. 

Alicia's  eyes  swept  his  with  a  sudden,  inquisitive 
glance.  Her  brows  approximated  puzzled.  She  fol- 
lowed his  eyes  drawn  toward  Millicent. 

Millicent  stood  composed  and  quiet,  defending  her 
secret  with  the  mask  of  a  pale  face.  She  lifted  her 
lids,  rettirning  Alicia's  gaze. 

Beauty's  own  lids  dropped,  Beauty's  features  crum- 
pled over  with  an  angry  spasm.  She  could  have 
struck  the  white  mask  for  the  mysterious  power  and 
beauty  of  it  at  that  moment,  the  power  and  mystery 
which  were  drawing  her  husband's  eyes.  For  she 
knew  that  with  all  her  charm  she  had  never  in  all  her 

23 


354        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

life  been  so  compellingly  beautiful  as  Millicent  was 
then  Pain  had  graven  rings  of  dark  intensity  about 
her  eyes,  the  pupils  were  big  with  a  mysterious  light. 
Her  features  were  transfigured.  She  was  in  the  grip 
of  that  power  which,  greater  than  man  or  woman,  is 
at  one  with  the  Creative  power  of  the  universe,  and 
sweeps  men  and  women  one  to  another  with  a  stress 
of  need  wherein  they  are  mere  instinctive  instruments 
of  Nature's  plan — or  godlike,  subdue  Nature's  means 
to  noble  ends. 

Alicia  had  been  so  long  accustomed  to  regard  Milli- 
cent as  a  mere  school-girl,  a  person  of  little  account 
and  no  experiences,  who  knew  nothing  of  men  and 
the  things  she  considered  to  constitute  life,  that  see- 
ing her  now  sweep  with  one  bound,  as  it  were,  beyond 
her  to  a  height  of  knowledge  to  put  into  hei  face  the 
intensity  of  womanhood  depicted  there,  she  was  riven 
with  envy.  The  chit,  who,  so  far  as  she  knew — and 
she  had  thought  contemptuously  of  Millicent' s  trans- 
parency, thinking  she  knew  all — had  probably  never 
even  been  kissed  by  a  man.  Yet  she  was  all  at  once 
more  woman  than  was  she  who  had  long  since  ceased 
to  count  her  kisses.  She  shivered  with  chagrin. 
Rising  abruptly,  she  crossed  the  room  and  seated  her- 
self in  such  a  position  that  Millicent' s  face  was  screened 
from  Richard.  Envy  was  a  pang  to  which  her  rare 
beauty  placed  her  generally  superior.  Jealousy  she 
scarcely  knew,  not  knowing  love.  Now  she  experi- 
enced both,  but  the  region  wherein  they  pricked  was 
the  region  of  vanity.  She  was  rapacious — insatiable 
of  admiration  and  devotion.  One  man  is  all-sufficient 
for  the  woman  who  loves.  The  woman  incapable  of 
love  often  suffers  from  a  species  of  emotional  dyspep- 
sia which  no  number  of  lovers  will  appease.  That 
Richard  should  bestow  a  thought  on  Millicent  was 
gall  of  bitterness  to  her.  She  had  been  prepared,  had 
even  expressed  a  hope  that  he  might  relieve  her  of 
some  of  the  responsibility  of  his  affection,  but  the 
person  of  his  selection  was  to  be  a  person  of  her  selec- 
tion— one  of  her  own  kind,  who  would  involve  neither 
him  nor  her  in  danger. 


MORE  VISITORS.  355 

Millicent  was  quite  another  matter.  Millicent  was 
no  safe  person  for  an  affair  with  one's  husband.  Mil- 
licent was  altogether  too  old-fashioned  and  intense. 
Moreover  and  moreover  Millicent  loved  him. 

Chatting  trivialities,  she  watched  her  curiously.  Her 
manner  and  control  were  admirable.  It  needed  a 
woman  and  a  woman  of  Alicia's  penetration  to  guess 
at  the  sick  misery  of  the  girl' s  heart,  the  procession  of 
pale  lonely  future  years  his  presence,  after  long 
absence,  had  conjured  up;  the  unnerving  sense — a 
sense  to  slow  her  breath,  and  set  her  hands  a-tremble 
— that  any  moment  he  might  rise  and  take  a  conven- 
tional leave  of  her,  a  leave  which  left  a  black  abyss  of 
desolation. 

For  Millicent  was  very  much  in  love.  The  last 
touch  had  been  set  to  her  emotions  by  this  new  factor 
of  his  unhappiness.  Had  he  been  satisfied ;  had  he 
been  able  to  deceive  her  into  believing  that  this  mar- 
riage, to  which  he  had  strained  every  effort,  had 
brought  even  a  measure  of  the  joy  whereof  she  had 
seen  him  so  secure,  pride  and  a  sense  of  the  fitness  of 
things  would  have  braced  her  to  accept  the  irrevoca- 
ble. 

But  the  disillusion  of  his  face,  the  manifest  lack  of 
sympathy  between  him  and  Alicia,  assailed  her  with 
a  new,  vague  whisper  of  responsibility.  In  the  soul 
of  such  as  love  unselfishly  there  is  a  fierce  cry  for  the 
well-being  of  the  beloved,  an  imperious  rebellion 
against  the  suffering  of  the  beloved,  a  dangerous 
insistence  upon  the  happiness  of  the  beloved.  Such 
a  strand  of  emotions  makes  a  dangerous  noose  in  the 
destiny  of  a  woman  old  enough  to  have  tested  the 
value  of  conventions,  wise  enough  (in  her  own  estima- 
tion) to  have  found  them  wanting,  strong  enough  to 
shake  herself  free  of  them. 

But  Millicent  was  young  and  bewildered  by  a  grow- 
ing sense  of  the  complexity  of  things,  oppressed  by  a 
conviction  of  irrevocableness  and  her  own  miserable 
helplessness  against  the  tide  of  circumstance. 

To  proffer  anything  more  than  friendliness  to  the 
husband  of  another  would  have  shocked  her  acquies- 


356         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

cence  in  the  fitness  of  accepted  things,  as  it  would 
have  wounded  her  unswerving  honesty.  She  loved 
Kershaw  because  he  seemed  to  her  the  embodiment 
of  all  that  was  great  in  man.  He  was  possibly  less 
heroic  than  her  mind  imagined  him — but  God  help  any 
of  us  whom  everybody  sees  with  unbiased  vision ! 

This  day  was  a  day  whereon  romance  first  shaped 
itself  to  the  prose  of  everyday  life.  She  formulated 
the  fate  of  the  beloved  with  a  dull  ache  at  her  heart. 

The  man  was  unhappy.  The  man  sat  at  breakfast 
lonely  and  disregarded.  The  man  went  solitary  and 
unheeded  to  his  study.  The  man  wandered  apart, 
bored  with  gay,  unsympathetic  chatter.  The  man 
came  and  went,  and  there  was  nobody  to  care.  The 
man  was  a  mere  background  for  a  selfish  life.  And 
such  a  man!  Millicent's  heart  swelled  to  breaking 
thinking  what  a  man  he  was.  A  soldier,  strong  and 
valorous ;  a  poet,  wise  and  gentle ;  a  man  of  large 
deeds  and  wide  grasp,  yet  with  little  sweetnesses  and 
courtesies  to  make  all  women  love  him,  moods  and 
impatiences  to  make  them  mind  him,  inflexibilities 
and  angles  to  be  honored  and  humored,  or  tempered 
and  resisted.  She  remembered  all  so  well.  How  she 
had  loved  to  brush  playfully  against  the  angles,  to  run 
hairbreadth  tilts  against  the  inflexibilities,  to  appease 
the  impatiences,  and  to  smile  in  her  sleeve  at  victories 
he  considered  his. 

And  now — now  all  these  genialities  were  wasting, 
all  that  made  him  so  lovable  were  unloved.  With  pain 
in  her  heart  she  pictured  him  living  forever  in  com- 
pany with  Alicia's  shallow  insensibility.  Already — 
and  he  was  but  six  months  wedded — already  he  was 
a  man  in  armor,  a  man  secluded  by  the  habit  of 
reserve  wherein  the  strong  and  sensitive  steel  them- 
selves against  unsympathy. 

"Well,  good-by,  "dear,"  Alicia  said,  rising  and  smil- 
ing. "It  has  been  so  delicious  to  see  you  again.  I 
wish  we  could  stop  longer.  You  positively  most  come 
and  pay  us  a  visit.  We  will  not  be  denied — now,  will 
we,  Richard?  Insist  on  her  coming  under  penalty  of 
your  eternal  wrath.  You  have  only  to  send  a  line, 


MORE  VISITORS.  357 

and  if  we  are  full  up,  and  as  you  know  we  .have  not 
over-much  room,  even  the  most  illustrious  of  person- 
ages shall  be  evicted  to  make  space  for  you." 

She  bade  good-by  to  Mrs.  Barling. 

"When  next  I  come,"  she  smiled,  playfully,  "I 
must  see  that  baby  of  yours.  I  dote  on  babies,  as 
Millicent  will  tell  you." 

She  set  her  smiling,  perfumed  lips  to  the  heiress' 
white  cheek.  She  swept  one  vigilant  glance  over  the 
cousins'  leave-taking,  but  even  her  mistrustful  soul 
found  nothing  there  beyond  affectionate  sincerity. 

"The  girl  is  a  fool  and  doesn't  know  her  power," 
she  thought,  contemptuously;  "and  she  probably 
thinks  they'll  meet  in  heaven!" 


358  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 


CHAPTER   XXXVII. 

ASPASIA. 

"  Every  worm  beneath  the  moon, 
Draws  different  threads,  and  late  and  soon, 
Spins,  toiling  out  his  own  cocoon." 

Gladys  Osborne  sat  in  the  clock  tower  poring  over 
parallelograms.  Every  room  in  the  house  was  en- 
rolled in  the  service  of  the  tableaux.  Where  people 
were  not  supping,  they  were  dressing ;  and  where  they 
were  not  dancing,  a  man  with  a  business  air  was  lay- 
ing out  the  garments  of  a  Grecian  maiden  or  a  Roman 
martyr. 

Another  man  stood  amid  a  multiplicity  of  wigs  and 
beards  and  rouge -pots,  with  the  puzzled  frown  of  some 
prime  minister  concocting  an  address  to  confound  a 
country's  politics  and  frustrate  the  knavish  tricks  of  a 
vigilant  opposition. 

' '  They  may  be  as  good  lords  and  ladies  as  you  please, ' ' 
he  was  muttering,  contemptuously,  "but  they're  no 
hartists."  (The  misplaced  aspirate  found  itself  in 
foreign  relations  as  much  from  the  exigencies  of  em- 
phasis as  from  those  of  ignorance.  It  is  not  easy  to 
render  the  term  artist  with  emphasis,  and  without  an 
"h.")  "The  blonde  gentlemen — and  especially  the 
ladies — must  have  black  or  chestnut  beards  and  coif- 
fers;  and  the  black  and  chestnuts  must  have  gold  or 
flaxen  coiffers.  What  do  they  care  if  their  eyes  and 
eyebrows  don't  'armonize.  Not  an  'air.  They're  not 
like  the  profession,  not  three  per  cent  of  them  has 
half  an  hartist's  eye." 

The  costumer  had  wrongs  as  well. 

"Zey  do  want — an  zey'  must  'ave  it — ze  bow  of  rib- 
bon here  or  ze  bouquet  on  ze  shoulder,  or  ze  rose  in 
ze  coiffure,  regardless  if  zey  be  gladiators  or  marteres. 
'Monsieur,  but  it  look  so  ni-ice,'  zey  sey.  Zat  is  ze 
altitude  of  ze  ambition  of  ze  English  ladys — to  look 


ASPASIA.  359 

ni-ice.  Mon  dieu,  'ow  small,  'ow  diminute  a  concep- 
tion! Vy,  a  Frenchwoman,  she  infinite  prefere  to 
look  all  nasty  down  to  ze  groun',  eef  it  be  wot  you  call 
in  keepin'.  But  zen — but  zen  ze  Frenchwoman,  oh, 
she  is  artist  to  her  finger  nails ;  she  is  soul  up  to  ze 
aigrette  in  'er  'air!" 

While  the  malcontents  so  raged  against  the  Philis- 
tine, a  military  band  discoursed  music  in  the  garden, 
where  a  contingent  of  Lord  Waldon's  guests  strolled, 
laughing  and  chatting. 

Gladys,  from  her  comfortable  quarters  in  the  room 
beneath  the  clock,  looked  down  on  them  at  intervals. 

"Then  since  the  parallelograms  AB  and  BC  are 
equal,  they  have  the  same  ratio  to  the  parallelogram 
FE  (v.  Prop.  7) ;  but  the  parallelograms  AB  and  FE, 
having  the  same  altitude,  are  proportional —  Oh, 
bother!"  she  interjected,  irritably.  "What  in  the 
name  of  goodness  does  it  matter!  After  all,  one  can't 
spend  life  in  a  parallelogram.  And  certainly  it  would 
be  pleasanter  in  the  rosary  this  close  evening." 

But  the  rosary  was  occupied.  Glancing  down  she 
could  see  two  figures  there — a  black  one  and  a  white 
one  sitting  together  on  the  bench  below  the  sun-dial. 
The  rosary  was  secluded  closely  by  a  tall  yew-hedge — 
and  the  hand  of  the  white  person  was  in  that  of  the 
black,  and  against  a  black  shoulder  was  a  blur  of  pink. 
And  the  scent  of  the  roses  and  the  sweetness  of  the 
music  were  about  them. 

"I  don't  know  who  they  are,  so  I  am  not  prying," 
she  murmured,  watching  them  with  eyes  half-con- 
temptuous, yet  undeniably  attracted.  "They  seem  to 
like  it,"  she  added,  under  her  breath,  "though  to  an 
onlooker  it  has  the  appearance  of  being  dull." 

She  found  herself  suddenly  blushing.  The  head  of 
the  person  in  black  had  bent  to  kiss  the  pink  cheek 
against  his  shoulder.  He  had  put  an  arm  about  her 
whiteness. 

Gladys  rose  hastily,  and  set  her  chair  the  other  way. 
"Good  gracious!"  she  ejaculated,  "somebody  will  see 
you  if  you  don't  take  care.  You  really  should  be  care- 
ful, you  know." 


360        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

An  impulse  moved  her  to  turn  again  one  moment 
in  the  direction  of  the  sentimental  couple. 

''It  might  be  Lady  Alicia, "  she  mused.  "It  looks 
like  her  corn-colored  hair.  Perhaps  she  and  Major 
Kershaw  have  had  an  explanation,  and  are  making  it 
up.  They  say  he  is  devoted  to  her." 

Footsteps  were  heard  at  this  juncture  climbing  the 
stair. 

A  servant,  she  reflected,  and  returned  to  the  alti- 
tude of  FE.  She  came  down  from  it  to  rise  in  a  hurry, 
and  to  draw  a  curtain  across  that  aspect  of  the  window 
commanding  the  rosary. 

"From  all  one  hears  it  might  not  be  the  major, " 
she  remarked,  contemptuously.  Then  she  laughed, 
and  extended  a  hand  as  the  footsteps  halted  at  the 
door. 

"Welcome,  oh  Invulnerable,"  she  cried. 

"It  is  only  in  artnor  and  with  padded  calves  I  can 
claim  that  distinction,"  he  retorted,  ruefully;  "at  this 
moment  I  am  the  most  vulnerable  and  dejected  of 
chaps." 

"You  do  not  look  cheerful,  certainly,"  she  said.  "I 
suppose  you  have  been  fetching  and  carrying  for 
everybody  with  your  normal  good-nature." 

He  sat  down  facing  her.  She  wore  a  cream  lace 
dinner-gown,  simple  as  became  her  student  occupa- 
tion ;  and  her  dark  hair  was  plainly  dressed.  Behind 
the  clear  lines  of  her  face,  illuminating  its  pallor  and 
glowing  in  her  eyes,  a  fine  intelligence  flashed.  The 
power  of  mental  concentration,  born  of  mental  disci- 
pline and  training,  limned  her  outlines  with  a  rare 
intensity,  at  the  same  time  arresting  and  repellant. 
Intellect  per  se,  whether  in  man  or  in  woman,  is  not 
lovable.  It  is  too  self-poised,  too  assumptive,  too 
independent.  As  a  force  seen  through  a  temperament, 
it  may  be  resistless,  but  the  temperament  must  veil  it 
well.  When  the  temperament  wears  thin  it  possesses 
no  more  charm  than  does  a  blazing  sun  in  a  hazeless  sky. 

Vaux  had  been  baffled  of  late  by  this  keen,  self- 
poised  intensity  of  his  new  friend.  She  was  reading 
for  an  examination,  and  her  brain  had,  as  was  her 


ASPASIA.  361 

wont,  almost  untempered  sway.  She  was  brilliant 
and  combative.  She  eluded  him  at  every  turn.  She 
mocked  him ;  she  tore  his  everyday  logic  of  life  to 
shreds;  she  fatigued  him  with  restlessness. 

He  thought  regretfully  of  Millicent,  her  cheerful- 
ness and  strong,  sweet  humor,  the  atmosphere  of 
reliability  and  rest  she  breathed. 

Yet  Gladys  fascinated  him.  She  was  excellent  com- 
pany. Her  mind  was  stored  with  knowledge.  She 
expressed  herself  wittily  and  well.  She  was  so  posi- 
tive, so  alive,  so  rapid-witted.  She  kept  him  spell- 
bound. He  found  himself  angry  that  in  half  her 
moods  he  did  not  find  her  lovable.  That  was  when 
over-work  had  worn  her  temperament  thin,  and  she 
was  mere  emotionless  scholar  rather  than  woman. 

But  this  evening  her  face  was  soft,  and  the  fire  of 
her  eyes  was  tempered.  He  remembered  with  a  good 
deal  of  irritation  that  he  had  not  long  to  stay.  For  of 
late  such  moods  had  been  rare  with  her. 

"I  brought  you  a  domino,"  he  said,  producing  it. 
' '  I  have  fitted  up  a  little  place  from  which  you  can  see 
the  tableaux  without  being  seen." 

Her  face  softened,  then  hardened.  "I  do  not  care 
a  fig  to  see  the  tableaux,  "  she  said,  curtly.  "Now, 
that  was  rude  of  me.  Forgive  me.  But,  indeed,  I 
have  much  more  important  matter  on  hand." 

"I  have  arranged  it  very  comfortably, "  he  urged, 
chagrined;  "but  if  you  do  not  care —  " 

She  shook  her  head.  "Euclid  is  far  more  interest- 
ing," she  said,  though  she  said  it  with  a  sigh. 

He  rose  mortified.  "You  are  very  hard  to  under- 
stand." 

"I  am,"  she  retorted.  "It  would  need  one  of  Mr. 
Vaux's  most  brilliant  moments." 

"Shall  I  leave  the  domino  in  case  you  change  your 
mind?" 

"I  shall  not  change  my  mind,"  she  said,  more  ami- 
ably. She  sat  staring  at  the  door  when  he  had  closed 
it  behind  him.  A  smile  softened  the  crisp  set  of  her 
features.  "He  is  very  sweet-tempered,"  she  said,  and 
returned  to  her  work. 


362         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

The  light  faded  out  of  the  sky.  A  warm  gloom 
gathered  in  the  garden  below  her.  Little  by  little  the 
gay  draperies  of  her  uncle's  guests  were  swallowed 
up.  Above  her  the  wheels  and  levers  of  the  great 
clock  whirred  and  clanged  at  their  appointed  duty. 
Below  her  the  grave,  old-fashioned  pendulum  creaked 
and  swung  with  methodical  beat.  Occasionally  an 
owl  clove  the  dusk  with  its  hoot  of  doom. 

She  laid  down  her  pen. 

"I  must  light  my  lamp,"  she  said. 

The  music  floated  softly  and  in  gentle  snatches  as 
though  the  mantle  of  night  were  muffling  it.  She 
remained  listening  till  her  ear  caught  something  else. 
She  smiled. 

' '  He  is  bringing  that  domino  again ;  what  a  persist- 
ent man  he  is!" 

He  entered  in  haste.  He  bore  the  domino.  But 
there  was  grave  disquiet  in  his  face.  He  breathed 
hard,  like  one  who  had  been  running. 

"I  want  you  to  come  at  once,"  he  said,  breath- 
lessly. 

"Indeed,"  she  answered,  dryly.     "Where?" 

' '  I  have  no  right  to  ask  you.  It  is  not  your  affair — 
for  the  matter  of  that,  it  is  not  mine.  But  one  occa- 
sionally does  something  for  another." 

"What  do  you  want  me  to  do?" 

"To  take  part  in  one  of  the  tableaux.  A  character 
is  missing.  The  house  and  grounds  have  been  searched, 
but  she  cannot  be  found.  It  will  prevent  fuss — per- 
haps something  worse — if  you  will  take  the  part.  She 
is  about  your  height — and  figure.  Nobody  need  know 
you  are  not  she. ' ' 

"Have  you  looked  in  the  rosary?" 

"Everywhere." 

"What  is  the  part?  Who  is  the  culprit?  What  has 
become  of  her?" 

"The  part  of  Aspasia.  It  is  a  tableau,  substituted 
for  that  of  Briseis.  The  culprit  is  Lady  Alicia.  The 
deuce  knows  what  mischief  she  is  up  to." 

"Why  should  I  protect  her?"  she  demanded. 

"Heaven  knows!"  he  said.     "It  is  not  for  her  sake. 


ASPASIA.  363 

Kershaw's  a  splendid  chap.  It  may  be  all  right,  and 
it  will  save  a  scandal. ' ' 

"Why  should  I  go  out  of  my  way  to  shield  her  from 
the  consequences  of  her  follies?"  she  demanded  again. 

"I  don't  know  why  you  should.  People  do  things 
like  that  occasionally. 

She  stood  deliberating. 

"How  long  have  we  to  discuss  the  subject — because 
I  do  not  care  to  do  things  in  a  hurry. ' ' 

"No  time  at  all.     You  ought  to  be  preparing  now." 

"Is  it  a  decent  dress?"  she  questioned,  scornfully. 

"I  think  I  can  answer  for  that.  Kershaw  saw  to  it 
himself. ' ' 

She  surrendered. 

"I  will  do  it,"  she  said,  "but  not  for  her  sake." 

"For  Kershaw's?" 

"No,"  she  cried,  hotly,  "for  the  sake  of  a  weak,  pit- 
iful sex  which  has  scarcely  emerged  from  squawdom. ' ' 

"I  say,  you  know,"  he  said,  as  they  descended  the 
stairs,  "it  is  awfully  good  of  you." 

"It  is  better  of  you,"  she  returned. 

"You  see,  I've  known  Kershaw  fof  years,"  he  sub- 
mitted, apologetically.  Nobody  was  to  know  of  the 
substitution.  Waldon  and  Vaux  alone  were  aware  of 
Alicia's  defection. 

"There's  a  corn-colored  wig  for  you, "Vaux  said, 
"and  they  will  color  you  up  to  it — awf'ly  smart  chap 
doin'  the  make  up.  You  can  go  down  in  the  domino 
and  keep  it  close  about  you.  You  and  I  are  the  only 
people  on.  You  needn't  throw  off  the  domino  till  just 
before  the  curtain  rises.  By  alterin'  the  pose  a  bit 
your  face  need  scarcely  be  seen." 

"Having  engaged  to  pay  the  part  of  a  fool,"  she 
said,  wrathf ully,  ' '  I  shall  certainly  do  my  best  to  con- 
ceal the  fact." 

The  tableau  was  three  minutes  late.  In  those  three 
minutes  Aspasia  had  stood  before  her  glass  with  blaz- 
ing eyes,  her  henna-tinted  ringer-tips  clenching  her 
palms  the  while  she  forged  a  chain  of  ayes  and  noes. 

Twice  the  call-boy  tapped  upon  her  door. 

"Well,"    she   said,   at  last,    "why   should   I   mind? 


364        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

After  all,  I  am  only  woman — Nature's  woman.  It  is 
only  convention  that  makes  us  ashamed. ' '  She  put 
on  her  domino  and  went  down. 

"Thank  goodness,"  Vaux  greeted  her.  "I  was 
afraid  your  courage  had  failed  you  at  the  last.  Why, 
you  are  trembling  all  over. ' ' 

"I  am  cold,"  she  said,  sardonically. 

"Stand  here,"  he  instructed,  "with  your  arms 
stretched  so,  and  your  face  half  turned  over  a  shoul- 
der. The  audience  will  be  mad;  they'll  want  to  see 
your  face.  That  yellow  hair  is  perfect.  Now  give  me 
the  domino." 

For  a  quarter  of  a  minute  she  clung  to  it.  Then 
she  removed  it  suddenly  and  passed  it  over  to  him. 

"Good  Lord!"  he  broke  out,  "I  thought  Kershaw — 
Why  did  you — ?" 

"I  did,"  she  returned,  wrathfully;  "and  I  will  never 
forgive  you  as  long  as  I  live. ' ' 

She  took  up  her  pose.  Her  beautiful  figure  and 
limbs,  as  shapely  and  as  delicate  as  Alicia's,  and  more 
beautiful  because  modest,  were  but  scantily  draped 
amid  a  foam  of  diaphanous  tissues. 

Vaux  as  Praxiteles  stood  facing  the  audience  in  the 
act  of  modeling  her.  There  were  chagrin  and  abase- 
ment in  the  gaze  he  turned  on  her.  Had  the  audience 
had  eyes  for  any  but  the  lovely  Greek,  they  might  well 
have  wondered  why  the  sculptor  had  not  conjured  a 
more  amiable  look  for  beauty's  presence.  But  the 
audience  paid  no  heed  to  Praxiteles. 

The  house  gazed  in  breathless  silence.  The  half- 
averted  face  was  perhaps  more  beautiful,  in  the  sug- 
gestion and  provocation  lent  it  by  the  lovely  throat 
and  tender  bust  and  shoulder,  than  a  face  seen  might 
have  been. 

From  the  distance  at  which  the  audience  sat,  it  was 
impossible  to  say  that  the  form,  with  its  half -hidden 
face  and  crown  of  yellow  hair,  was  not  Alicia's. 

But  the  spectators,  anticipating  something  different, 
were  not  altogether  sure  that  it  was  Alicia  in  her  best 
form.  Aspasia  was  not  piquante — she  did  not  look 


ASPASIA.  365 

her  part.  She  was  lovely,  surpassingly  lovely,  but 
she  was  neither  Aspasia  nor  Alicia. 

They  waited.  Knowing  Alicia,  they  imagined  she 
might  have  a  surprise  in  store — some  audacious  sud- 
den turn  of  the  head,  a  smile,  some  quick,  half-flashed, 
half-veiled  regard. 

But  Aspasia  showed  no  sign.     She  stood  as  marble. 

A  hand-clap  from  Lord  Waldon  started  the  applause. 

The  handsome  theatre  shook  with  acclamation.  The 
curtain  fell — fell  perhaps  a  little  flatly.  For  the  audi- 
ence was  puzzled. 

"Alicia  didn't  seem  herself  to-night,"  one  said  to 
another. 

"I  never  saw  her  look  better,"  another  asserted. 

In  the  meantime  Gladys,  duly  re-dominoed,  was 
hurrying  to  the  dressing-room.  She  had  not  vouch- 
safed one  word  to  Vaux  as  he  folded  her  apologetically 
in  her  cloak. 

At  the  door  of  her  room  she  was  aware,  in  the  dim 
light,  of  somebody  having  followed  her. 

As  she  hurried  in  without  turning  her  head,  a  man's 
voice  said  behind  her — a  voice  tense  and  thrilling  with 
anger : 

"Will  you  never  tell  the  truth?  Have  you  one  fibre 
of  decency  in  you?  Why  did  you  lie  to  me,  and  show 
me  a  different  dress  as  the  one  you  would  wear?' ' 

She  closed  the  door  precipitately,  locking  it  in  his 
face. 

Several  tableaux  followed,  and  were  vociferously 
approved,  the  grouping,  setting,  and  dressing  being 
in  every  instance  admirable.  Beneath  the  stage, 
amid  a  confusion  of  cranks  and  pulleys,  ladders,  and 
every  variety  of  mechanical  appliance,  a  party  of  per- 
spiring scene-shifters,  electric-light  operatives,  and 
stage  engineers,  stood  to  their  posts,  marshaling  thun- 
der, moonlight,  sunlight,  Arcadian  forest,  Olympian 
cloud,  sky,  river,  and  ocean,  to  charm  in  due  turn  the 
fashionable  assemblage — a  perspiring  crowd,  for  the 
most  part  in  shirt-sleeves,  resting  at  intervals  from 
their  labors  to  take  long  drinks  of  frothing  beverages, 


366         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

and  to  grumble  at  the  sultry  heat  down  there  in  the 
cavernous  depths. 

Above,  in  the  rooms  assigned  to  them,  the  men  of 
wigs  and  curling-irons,  the  wielders  of  rouge-pot  and 
kohl,  reinforced  by  wardrobe  assistants  and  others, 
performed  marvels;  anticipating  and  annihilating 
time ;  transforming  as  by  miracle  the  stream  of  up-to- 
date  aristocrats  and  triflers  into  early  Christian  mar- 
tyrs, Spartan  warriors,  Olympian  deities,  and  maids  of 
ancient  Greece ;  anxious  and  harassed  as  to  the  fit  of 
robes  and  armor,  the  adjustment  of  sword  and  antique 
buckler,  the  lacing  of  sandal  and  greave,  the  set  of 
curl  and  ringlet,  the  arching  a  fraction  nearer  beauty's 
edict  her  Grace's  eyebrow,  darkening  her  ladyship's 
lashes,  adjusting  his  lordship's  mustaches,  lending 
curve-  and  color  to  lips,  roses  and  lilies  to  cheeks, 
breasts  and  hips  to  spareness. 

And  the  audience,  seeing  nothing  but  these  graceful 
facts  accomplished,  and  the  train  of  smiling  superla- 
tive personages  presented  to  them  group  on  group,  in 
perfect  settings,  exclaimed  at  the  simplicity  and  ease 
of  the  achievement. 

It  were  but  to  cry,  "Hey,  Presto!"  and  Sir  Lightly 
Jones  was  Olympian  Jupiter,  majestic  of  mien,  flash- 
ing of  eye,  grasping  electric  lightnings,  while  behind 
him  rosy-fingered  morning  moved  in  fleecy,  gold- 
flecked  cloud,  and  below  him  deafening  thunder 
bellowed  down  the  vaults  of  space. 

But  alas  for  poor  Lightly  and  the  plans  of  men ! 
For  some  inflammable  device  subtending  the  rose- 
flecked  fleece  of  morning  went  agley,  and  Jupiter 
Tonans  found  himself  all  at  once  the  alarmed  victim 
of  elements  it  was  his  duty  to  compel. 

It  had  been  a  dangerous  venture,  and  experienced 
stage  servants  had  not  scrupled  so  to  characterize  it. 
But  Waldon  was  as  obstinate  a  man  as  he  was  ambi- 
tious a  stage-manager,  and  having  devoted  some  enthu- 
siastic weeks  to  working  out  an  effect  of  rosy-fingered 
morning,  as  achieved  by  revolving  iron  plates,  pre- 
pared with  sheets  of  strontium -saturated  cotton- wool 


ASPASIA.  367 

— the  representations  of  prudence  had  not  had  the 
least  effect. 

No  substance  so  dangerous  as  cotton-wool  should  be 
permitted  within  a  mile  of  a  theatre,  he  was  warned 
and  warned  again. 

''Oh,  damn  croaking!"  he  insisted.  "I  mean  to 
have  it.  I  tried  it  the  other  night,  and  it  went  splen- 
didly. Just  flared  up  lightly  and  went  out.  Magnifi- 
cent scheme.  Controlled  as  easily  as  a  lucifer  match." 

But  even  lucifer  matches  have  been  known  to  work 
mischief.  And  so  on  this  occasion  did  Waldon's  cot- 
ton-wool. For  as  ill-luck  would  have  it  there  was  a 
door  open  somewhere — notwithstanding  that  strict 
orders  had  been  issued  for  avoiding  risks  by  draught 
during  this  particular  tableau  by  keeping  all  ground- 
floor  doors  and  windows  closely  shut. 

But  the  night  was  hot,  and  the  perspiring  under- 
ground operatives  could  scarcely  breath  for  lack  of 
air. 

"Oh,  damn  croaking,"  they  insisted,  unconsciously 
echoing  their  employer,  and  sundry  windows  were 
flung  wide. 

And  all  the  doors  in  the  theatre  stood  open.  The 
audience,  unaware  of  any  obligation  beyond  its  own 
immediate  comfort,  saw  to  that. 

The  result  was  the  establishment  of  a  strong  cur- 
rent of  air.  So  that  Waldon's  rosy-flame-clouds, 
instead  of  shooting  lightly  upward  and  burning  inno- 
cently out,  as  was  intended  of  them,  were  caught  in  a 
draught  at  one  corner  of  the  heavens  and  drawn  for- 
ward in  a  fierce  flare,  with  the  result  that  a  canopy  of 
filmy  tissue  above  the  fulminating  head  and  front  of 
the  unfortunate  deity  took  fire. 

He,  sublimely  ignorant  in  all  the  temporary  glory 
of  omnipotence,  which  required  his  close  attention  to 
the  handful  of  lightning  he  wielded  and  the  poise  of 
the  well-padded  arm  wherewith  he  wielded  it ;  more- 
over, deafened  by  the  thunder  forging  at  his 'finger 
ends,  maintained  his  pose  amid  that  he  believed  to  be 
a  background  of  innocuous  red-light,  till  the  audience 
rose  in  a  body,  directing  his  attention  to  some  spot 


368  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

above  him.  At  the  same  moment  a  large  fold  of  tissue, 
smoldering  and  ablaze,  fell  at  his  feet,  brushing  his 
wig  of  hyacinthine  locks.  In  an  instant  this,  too, 
caught  fire,  and  flared  about  him  with  that  speed  which 
is  one  of  the  most  appalling  phenomena  of  flame. 

He  had,  fortunately,  the  presence  of  mind  to  throw 
down  his  lightnings,  tear  off  the  wig — now  a  tall  cap 
of  flame — and  fling  it  to  a  distance,  before  he  was 
more  than  slightly  burned  about  the  hands  and  brow. 
Unfortunately,  however,  he  was  merely  mortal,  and 
had  not  prescience  to  beware  that  in  ridding  himself 
of  his  fiery  headgear,  he  should  cast  it  whither  it  might 
do  no  further  injury. 

So  he'  cast  it  amid  a  bed  of  taU  white  lilies,  veiled 
with  gauze  and  tinsel  mist,  and  these,  being  things  of 
silk  and  cotton,  at  once  ignited. 

Jupiter  fled;  the  audience  shrieked,  left  their  seats 
in  a  panic,  and  made  for  the  doors. 

The  sudden  descent  of  an  iron  curtain,  shutting  off 
the  auditorium,  restored  confidence  and  control.  A 
few  men  took  command,  issued  orders,  and  presentty 
the  assemblage  was  passing  leisurely  and  orderly  out 
by  the  ample  exit-ways. 

Now  and  again  some  terrified  individual  would  make 
a  dash,  but  was  straightway  and  at  once  suppressed 
and  in  less  than  ten  minutes  the  place  was  empty. 
Not,  however,  before  a  red  glow  in  the  partition  sepa- 
rating the  first  tier  of  boxes  from  the  stage  had  shown 
that  behind  the  iron  curtain  the  fire  was  still  spread- 
ing. 

Outside  from  the  lawn  the  great,  ugly  mass  of  build- 
ing showed  in  dull  shadow,  betraying  no  evidence  of 
its  horrible  tenant  further  than  that  afforded  by  a 
round  upper  window,  which  occasionally  flashed  a  red, 
ominous  eye. 

Above  it  a  plume  of  smoke  reared,  thin,  and  ascend- 
ing grayly  in  the  moonlight. 

The  spectators  drifted  into  groups,  congratulating 
one  another,  speculating  upon  results  and  might-have- 
beens,  commenting  on  Waldon's  rashness,  Jupiter's 
escape,  ^and  so  satisfied  itself  with  reiteration  that  the 


ASPASIA.  369 

flames  would  be  speedily  got  tinder  that  it  even  began 
to  think  and  speak  of  supper. 

There  was  a  continued  stream  of  persons  issuing 
from  the  building — persons  in  shirt-sleeves,  and  with 
oily  hands  and  faces;  footmen,  maids,  dressers,  and 
stage  helpers — and  from  these  it  was  presently  learned 
that  there  was  but  little  chance  of  subduing  the  fire. 
The  place  was  well-supplied  with  hose  and  every 
appliance;  but,  by  some  stupidity,  the  engine  and 
hose  had  been  packed  away  in  a  room  beneath  the 
stage — a  room  which  the  flames  had  cut  off.  In  the 
yard,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  house,  there  was  soon 
a  line  of  men,  guests  who  had  thrown  off  their  coats, 
stablemen,  grooms  and  stage  carpenters,  with  buckets 
passing  from  .hand  to  hand  continuously  and  rapidly 
as  they  were  filled.  But  the  latest  comers  from  the 
scene  of  fire  shook  their  heads  portentously. 

"It  flares  like  tinder,"  they  said.  "It  is  just  cram- 
med with  inflammable  stuff.  The  object  now  is  to 
prevent  it  spreading  to  the  house.  A  man  has  just 
galloped  off  for  the  town  engine." 

Guests  staying  in  the  house  began  to  think  about 
their  possessions.  Matters  looked  grave.  Little 
licking  flames  showed,  lapping  their  ravenous  way 
through  window  spaces;  a  great  smoke  gathered, 
lowering,  above  the  roof;  there  were  ominous  sounds 
of  evil  crackling,  as  of  a  monster  getting  grip  of  the 
bones  and  frame-work  of  a  prey. 

To  the  reiterated  anxious  demands,  "Is  everybody 
out?  is  everybody  safe?"  a  comforting  affirmative  came. 
Sundry  dressers  had  been  slightly  burned,  and  a  car- 
penter had  broken  a  leg  scrambling  his  way  out  from 
the  machinery.  One  of  the  guests  was  an  eminent 
surgeon,  and  the  injured  were  receiving  immediate 
care.  Mean  while, ',Waldon,  at  all  times  an  excitable 
man  and  a  weak  one,  conscience-stricken  at  the  recol- 
lection of  timely  warnings,  had  so  lost  his  head  as  to 
be  in  a  condition  bordering  on  delirium.  Under  the 
surgeon's  directions,  he  was  conveyed  to  the  house 
and  restrained  there.  A  few  persons  ordered  their 
carriages  and  drove  home,  but  the  greater  number 

24 


370        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

were  by  far  too  keenly  interested  in  the  issue  to 
depart.  They  remained  watching  up  at  the  doomed 
building. 

All  at  once  cries  arose. 

"Lady  Alicia!"  "Aspasia!"  "Where  is  Lady 
Alicia?" 

The  cries  were  taken  up  in  tense  voices.  There  was  a 
horrible  momentary  hush — then  agitated  talk.  Nobody 
had  seen  her  since  the  tableaux.  She  had  last  been 
observed  ascending  the  staircase  to  her  dressing- 
room.  Her  name  was  called  clamorously  and  in  all 
directions.  She  was  begged,  for  heaven's  sake  to 
show  herself.  Little  rushes  were  made  from  place  to 
place.  Men  ran  to  and  fro  between  the  house  and 
grounds,  searching  and  shouting  her  name.  But 
there  was  neither  sign  nor  news  of  her.  Information 
narrowed  always  to  the  fact  that  she  had  last  been  seen 
in  a  domino  ascending  to  her  dressing-room. 

"Where  is  Vaux, "  somebody  cried.  "Vaux  was  in 
the  tableau  with  her. ' ' 

"Yes,    find  out   from  Vaux.     Vaux  must   know." 

"For  heaven's  sake,  Vaux,  where  is  Aspasia?  Lady 
Alicia  cannot  be  found. " 

Vaux  had  been  first  and  foremost  at  the  pumps. 
Having  been  assured  that  everybody  was  safe, 
that  all  were  out  of  the  burning  building,  he  had 
started  the  line  of  buckets,  installing  himself  at  the 
fire  end.  He  was  a  smoky  object,  in  grimy  shirt- 
sleeves, as  he  now  joined  the  group  before  the  house. 
He  was  seen  panting  and  mopping  a  wet  face.  At 
the  cry  he  stood  like  a  man  stricken.  Then  he  seemed 
to  recover  himself.  He  spoke  in  a  low  voice  to  a 
servant  near.  The  man  rushed  headlong  to  the 
house.  He  returned  in  a  few  minutes  with  a  fright- 
ened face. 

"Miss  Osborne  has  never  come  in  again,  sir,"  he 
gasped. 

"Aspasia!  Lady  Alicia.  For  God's  sake,  can't 
something  be  done?"  came  in  breathless  outbursts 
from  the  crowd. 


ASPASIA.  371 

Three  men  started  running  for  the  only  doorway 
left  distinguishable  as  such. 

But  Vaux  was  first. 

' '  Stand  away, ' '  he  said,  quietly.  ' '  I  know  the  house. 
I'll  go." 


372  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 
RICHARD  TO  THE  RESCUE. 

'  'Suppose  it  were  not  so. 
Suppose' there  were  true  men,  you  know." 

Kershaw  had  retreated  to  the  garden  at  the  close  of 
the  tableau.  He  strolled  into  the  rosary,  which  just 
'then,  bathed  in  a  flood  of  moonlight,  showed  like  a 
thicket  of  rose  ghosts.  The  flowers  seemed  awake 
with  a  weird,  strange  consciousness,  the  cold  light 
supplanting  their  warm  pinks  and  yellows  and  blood- 
reds,  with  a  mysterious  silver  pallor, — the  pallor,  as 
it  seemed,  of  awed  emotion,  as  though  you  had  waked 
them  from  a  Great  Dream.  The  pink  blood  having 
fled  their  cheeks,  you  could  scarcely  tell  flower  from 
leaf.  The  day  had  been  hot,  and  the  bushes  glistened 
with  a  film  of  dew,  which  here  and  there  amid  the  petals 
gathered  to  a  drop,  and  this  the  moonlight  transmuted 
to  a  diamond.  The  air  was  charged  with  perfumed 
breath;  the  place  was  hushed  with  the  silence  of 
beautiful  growth. 

The  man  flung  himself  wearily  upon  the  marble 
bench  encircling  the  sun-dial.  Above  and  behind 
him  the  moonbeams,  borrowing  the  sun's  light,  made 
with  it  a  playful  mockery  of  the  dial  finger,  laying  its 
shadow  long  after  the  hour. 

Kershaw  stared  grimly  before  him,  his  jaw  set  with 
the  iron  of  despair,  his  eyes  gleaming. 

"How  can  one  deal  with  her,"  he  muttered; 
"shameless,  and  a  liar?  There  is  no  way  of  restrain- 
ing her,  as  there  is  no  trusting  to  her  promises.  The 
dress  she  showed  me — Pah!  to  have  one's  wife  pose 
for  one's  acquaintance  like  some  creature  from  the 
streets. ' ' 

He  sat  revolving  the  events  of  the  evening  with  his 
brain  aflame.  He  came  always  to  the  same  conclusion : 

"What  a  cursed  fool  I've  been!    I  was  no  raw  boy!" 


RICHARD  TO  THE  RESCUE.  373 

He  recalled  her  manner  with  Ludwig.  At  the  con- 
clusion of  the  first  tableau  she  had,  in  the  face  of  the 
audience  and  in  answer  to  his  loud  "Brava, "  flashed 
him  a  glance,  remembering  which,  her  husband  found 
it  difficult  to  remain  seated.  He  got  up  and  paced 
the  rose-hedged  path.  The  gravel  crunched  harshly 
under  his  grinding  heels. 

"If  it  had  been  anything  but  this,"  he  said.  "Had 
she  been  blind,  invalided,  mad,  I  would  not  have 
failed  her!  But  this — " 

A  dream  of  Millicent  came  to  him,  true-eyed, 
womanly;  a  fair,  tender  friend;  a  white,  sweet,  life 
companion.  He  put  the  thought  from  him  with  a 
bursting  brain.  God  help  him !  he  must  take  his  life 
as  he  had  made  it !  There  must  be  no  weak  lockings 
back.  There  must  be  no  more  mistakes.  Yet  again 
God  help  him !  for  he  knew  that  Millicent  loved  him. 
He  paced  the  rose-garden  rapidly  and  heavily,  till 
exhaustion  followed  on  excitement. 

He  sat  down  again,  worn  out. 

"No,"  he  said,  finally,  "there  must  be  no  more 
mistakes ! ' ' 

All  at  once  the  confused  murmur  and  beat  of  his 
pulses  separated  from  an  increasing  murmur  and 
movement  at  a  distance. 

A  curious  roar  and  one  or  two  hoarse  shoutings 
reached  him.  The  rosary  was  so  shut  in  that  nothing 
could  be  seen  beyond  it.  He  stood  up,  listening  and 
looking  about  him.  Then  the  color  leaped  suddenly 
back  to  the  roses,  the  blooms  stood  out  vivid  and  red 
from  the  monotone  of  leaf  and  stem.  The  place  was 
filled  with  light.  Immediately,  two  tall  flames  shot  up 
like  spires  above  the  line  of  yew  hedge ;  a  handful  of 
sparks  sprayed  as  though  shot  from  a  gun  into  a  rose- 
bed  near  him,  and  smoldered  out  with  sharp  hissings 
of  discontent  amid  the  dew. 

A  great  black  canopy  of  smoke,  flame-illumined 
from  beneath  till  it  looked  like  some  huge  scarlet- 
bellied  monster,  showed  aflame;  then  dulled  and 
writhed,  swallowed  in  another  smoke  cloud. 

"Good  heavens,  the  theatre!"  he  ejaculated,  noting 


374        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

the  direction  as  he  started  rapidly  and  in  a  direct  line 
for  the  portal,  scattering  showers  of  dew  and  petals  as 
he  thrust  his  way. 

The  burst  of  flame  through  the  roof  of  the  building 
was  greeted  by  a  sudden,  apprehensive  cry.  Ker- 
shaw,  hearing  it,  felt  his  heart  knot  in  his  breast.  It 
was  a  sort  of  instinctive  appeal  to  the  foe  for  respite. 
It  was  the  cry  for  a  fellow-creature's  safety.  He 
flung  forward  with  still  greater  speed.  He  was  soon 
on  the  lawn,  where  the  theatre,  with  its  accessories  of 
dressing-rooms,  green-rooms,  large  supper-room,  and 
smoking-room,  had  been  built  as  an  annex  to  the 
house. 

Nearly  two  hundred  persons  were  assembled — 
guests,  servants,  stage  employees — and  the  number 
was  increased  from  time  to  time  by  country  folk,  who, 
on  hearing  the  alarm,  had  tumbled  from  their  beds, 
flung  on  portions  of  their  dress,  and  hurried  to  the 
spot. 

Many  of  the  guests  were  still  in  character.  Some  of 
the  women  had  thrown  wraps  over  their  thin  gowns, 
while  many  stood  with  bared  shoulders  and  arms, 
staring  up  distracted  at  the  burning  building,  the 
rich  stuffs  and  laces  of  their  trains  being  torn  and 
trampled  round  them  as  they  stood.  Men  pushed 
their  way  hither  and  thither,  carrying  cloaks  and 
succor  to  their  own  especial  or  to  any  of  the  women- 
kind,  at  the  same  time  striving  to  persuade  them  into 
the  house.  One  lady  was  borne  away  fainting, 
another  paced  hysterically  to  and  fro,  wringing  her 
hands  in  panic ;  but  for  the  most  part  they  were  quiet 
and  collected,  and  watched  the  progress  of  the  flames 
with  excited  interest. 

"All  saved?"  Kershaw  demanded,  in  a  gasp,  of  the 
bystanders.  "Alicia  safe,  Tudor?"  he  questioned, 
recognizing  a  man  beside  him. 

"By  God,  she  isn't!"  the  man  returned,  hoarsely. 

"She's  never  come  out  of  her  dressing-room.  Stop, 
man,  stop!  Vaux  has  gone  in  for  her!  For  God's  sake 
stop  him,  you  chaps!  He  can't  do  any  good!" 

As  he  made  his  way  along,  parting  the  crowd  with 


RICHARD  TO  THE  RESCUE.  375 

a  strong  hand,  brooking  no  bar,  wasting  no  moment 
nor  effort,  but  proceeding  with  a  clear  brain  and 
irresistible  determination,  there  suddenly  arose  a  burst 
of  cheers  and  shouting.  Hats,  hands,  and  handker- 
chiefs, were  waved.  Some  cried  ' '  Bravo ! "  "  Hurrah ! ' ' 
all  eyes  being  turned  upon  a  man  who  issued  at  that 
moment  out  of  that  which  seemed  to  be  a  mouth  of 
flame,  carrying  a  woman  in  his  arms. 

"Bravo,  Vaux!"  "Hurrah,  Vaux!"  "Aspasia!" 
"Lady  Alicia!"  "Three  cheers  for  Praxiteles!"  went 
up,  and  in  the  reaction  following  breathless  suspense 
some  women  broke  into  tears,  some  laughed  out  of 
sheer  hysterical  agitation,  while  the  great  throng 
swayed  and  pressed  this  way  and  that,  and  turning 
shook  hands  one  with  another,  murmuring  applause 
and  congratulation. 

Kershaw  was  in  time  to  catch  his  burden  from  him, 
as  Vaux  lurched  dizzily  forward,  murmuring  inco- 
herently: 

"Afraid  I  rushed  you  a  bit.  Deuced  deal  o'  smoke 
about.  Feel  rather  queer  myself,"  and  fell  headlong 
on  the  grass,  a  grimy,  scorched  mass,  with  his  hair  and 
clothes  aflame. 

The  burden  made  a  spirited  resistance  to  Kershaw's 
embrace,  as  he  put  an  arm  about  her,  crying : 

"Thank  God,  dear— thank  God!" 

She  struggled  against  him.  She  wrested  herself 
away,  and,  pushing  forward,  threw  herself  beside 
Vaux.  With  her  hands  and  a  fold  of  her  cloak  she 
assisted  to  smother  out  the  flames.  But  Kershaw 
had  seen  her  face. 

He  swept  one  hurried  glance  over  the  flaring  front, 
searching  the  windows. 

"Where  is  Alicia?  Where  is  my  wife?"  he  questioned 
of  the  bystanders. 

"She  was  the  only  one  missing,"  somebody  said. 
"There  is  nobody  missing  now." 

"The  fire-engine — the  fire-engine,"  the  crowd  cried, 
impetuoiisly,  as  the  gallop  of  hoofs,  and  the  roll  of 
wheels  sounded  amid  shouts  and  exhortations  from  a 
distance. 


376        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW 

"Her  poor  ladyship  is  still  missing,  sir,"  a  man  said 
compassionately  beside  him.  He  recognized  his 
groom.  Tears  rolled  down  the  man's  cheeks. 

"Poor  perfect  flesh!"  her  husband  groaned,  in  a 
burst  of  pity.  Catching  a  rug  from  somebody's  hand, 
he  wrapped  it  about  his  head  and  face,  and  plunged  in 
through  the  blazing  doorway. 

"If  Vaux  could  come  down  I  can  go  up,"  he  mut- 
tered. 

He  could  see  nothing  before  him.  Flames  darted 
down  upon  him,  crackling  vengefully;  smoke  which 
could  find  no  exit  enveloped  him  like  lowering 
frowns,  shielding  him  in  some  part  from  the  tongues, 
but  suffocating,  blinding,  choking  him. 

Under  him  the  floor  of  the  passage  gave  in  parts 
like  tinder,  so  that  thrice  he  stumbled  and  fell  head- 
long. He  had  a  vague  notion  of  the  plan  of  the  build- 
ing. At  any  rate,  he  must  push  on  till  he  made  the 
staircase.  But  the  main  stairway  showed  a  gap  of 
smoke  and  flame  which  made  ascent  impracticable. 
Further  on  he  came  upon  another,  a  narrow  iron 
spiral  which,  heated  though  it  was,  gave  him  footing 
and  a  sense  of  security  the  charred  and  fiery  floorway 
of  the  passage  had  not  given. 

"Alicia!"  he  shouted  through  the  smoke  and  flame. 
"Don't  be  afraid,  dear.  I  am  coming.  Hold  on  a  bit 
longer."  He  thought  pitifully  of  her  small-souled 
selfishness,  crouching  lonely  somewhere  above,  fight- 
ing, wrestling  with  pain  and  death.  "Call  out,  dear, 
to  guide  me.  Alicia,  do  you  hear  me?  Alicia,  I  am 
coming  to  save  you.  Don't  lose  heart,  my  poor 
darling.  She  is  too  frightened,  poor  thing,"  he  re- 
flected, '  'or  perhaps — " 

He  pushed  on  with  redoubled  vigor,  calm  and  strong 
and  prudent.  Reaching  an  upper  passage,  he  stood 
to  draw  breath.  His  lungs  seemed  flayed  with  the 
scorch  of  burning  air  and  fumes.  He  coughed  and 
choked.  He  pulled  the  rug  closer  about  his  mouth 
and  nostrils,  and  went  on.  As  he  went  he  stooped  and 
tore  off  bits  of  burning  trouser.  The  place  was  dense 
and  black  with  smoke.  Fierce  draughts  caught  and 


RICHARD  TO  THE  RESCUE.  377 

swirled  it,  eddying  round  him.  There  were  some 
sparks,  and  a  continuous  deafening  roar.  But  only 
the  further  end  of  the  passage  was  as  yet  aflame. 

He  still  kept  calling  to  her.  She  was  no  person  to 
meet  death.  He  was  afraid  lest  in  her  fear  she  should 
do  some  foolish  thing — panic-stricken  plunge  into 
worse  danger.  He  was  confident  of  finding  her.  He 
could  not  believe  her  dead.  He  thought  ruthfully  of 
her  in  her  nakedness  and  flimsy  tinsel,  as  last  he  had 
seen  her,  her  bare  tender  limbs  prey  to  this  horrible 
monster. 

"Alicia,"  he  called  again.  "Alicia,  speak,  if  you 
hear  me. "  He  held  his  breath  to  listen.  But  there 
was  nothing  to  be  heard  beyond  the  fierce  crackling 
exultation  of  a  consuming  monster.  He  opened  every 
door  along  the  passage.  The  rooms  were  a  confusion 
of  draperies  and  armor,  as  the  wearers  had  left  them. 
Here  and  there  tinsel  fripperies  caught  the  flame,  and 
seemed  to  sparkle  spitefully.  One  room  was  a  mere 
furnace,  with  its  door  half  eaten  through.  As  he 
passed,  a  portion  of  the  floor  fell  in,  and  a  great  puff 
of  flame  and  smoke  belched  out  upon  him,  setting  light 
to  his  hair.  He  smothered  it  out  with  the  rug,  then 
stopped  short  suddenly.  He  was  coming  to  the 
end  of  his  strength.  A  man  couldn't  stand  more  than 
an  amount  of  this  kind  of  thing.  A  man  couldn't  go 
on  breathing  smoke  and  flame.  He  was  choking — 
suffocating.  He  was  falling.  He  nerved  himself.  I 
must  save  her  at  any  cost,"  he  muttered.  He  called 
again  deliriously,  "Alicia,  Alicia,  where  are  you?" 

Having  arrived  at  the  end  of  the  passage  he  retraced 
his  steps  laboriously;  now  he  could  only  proceed  on 
hands  and  knees,  for  fire  begun  to  dart  fiercely  upon 
him  through  doors  he  had  not  waited  to  close.  He 
clambered  dizzily  and  slowly  down  the  long  passage, 
falling  prone  and  prostrate  at  intervals  when  faintness 
overcame  him.  But  he  roused  himself  always  with 
hope  that  the  next  room  must  surely  contain  her.  He 
dared  not  hope  to  save  her  now.  There  was  a  wide 
chasm  in  the  floor  behind  him,  and  a  tall  guard  of 
menacing  flames  between  him  and  the  stairway.  He 


378        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

could  not  save  her — were  she  still  alive — but  he  could 
die  with  her,  poor  thing! 

He  sickened  as  he  fell  against  the  last  door.  If  she 
were  not  here  it  meant — 

The  room  was  empty.  The  fire  had  not  yet  reached 
it ;  the  window  stood  open.  Thank  heaven  for  air — 
for  air!  He  struggled  to  the  window,  drawing  deep 
breaths  into  his  raw,  scorched  chest.  Then  he  cried 
out  and  fell  headlong  against  the  sill. 


He  came  to  himself  to  the  sound  of  vehement  shout- 
ing. "Leap,  Kershaw.  For  God's  sake,  leap!  It  is 
your  only  chance. ' '  He  was  lying  with  his  arms  and 
shoulders  out  of  window.  Below  him  men  stood  like 
men  in  an  inferno,  their  frames  and  faces  lighted  with 
a  lurid  glare.  At  a  distance  a  mass  of  stricken  faces 
were  upturned  to  him  with  the  aspect  of  persons 
straining  for  breath. 

The  room  behind  him  was  now  filled  with  smoke 
and  flame.  Half  the  floor  had  fallen  in.  A  sudden 
burst  of  fire  had  discovered  him  to  somebody  in  the 
crowd  as  he  had  fallen,  leaning  head  and  shoulders  out 
of  window. 

The  fire  escape  was  being  brought  round,  but  it 
was  doubtful  whether  it  could  be  in  time. 

He  collected  himself. 

"Where  is  Alicia?"  he  demanded,  dizzily. 

"For  God's  sake,  Kershaw,  pull  yourself  together 
and  jump.  There  isn't  a  moment  to  lose." 

More  by  instinct  than  by  design  he  cast  a  bewildered 
look  into  the  flame-red  scene  below  him.  A  number 
of  black  figures  held  a  carpet  wide  beneath  the  win- 
dow. He  nerved  himself  and  tumbled  rather  than 
leaped  headlong  over  the  sill. 

The  next  thing  he  knew  was  that  he  was  lying  in 
bed,  swathed  from  head  to  foot  in  splints  and  band- 
ages. He  seemed  to  be  a  mass  of  flaming  pain  and 
rawness.  But  a  voice  he  knew — a  voice  he  had 
learned  to  love — was  speaking  gently  near  him,  and  a 
light  touch — a  touch  that  seemed  to  be  a  healing 


RICHARD  TO  THE  RESCUE.  379 

touch,  so  tender  and  soft  was  it — had  gently  lifted 
something  from  before  his  eyes. 

"I  have  come  to  nurse  you,  Richard.     Dear  Richard, 
it  is  I!"  she  said. 


Recovery  was  slow.  They  feared  he  would  be 
blind ;  and  there  was  serious  trouble  with  the  flayed, 
scorched  lungs.  But  he  was  gifted  with  a  sturdy  con- 
stitution, and  he  came  through  suffering  and  danger 
with  no  more  permanent  harm  than  the  loss  of  a  finger. 
And  Millicent  tended  him. 


380  WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 
TALKIN'  SENSE. 

"Who  knows  the  ways  of  the  world,  how  God  will  bring  them 
about?" 

Alicia  wrote : — 

"My  Dear  Richard, — Right  from  the  beginning  our 
marriage  was  ridiculous.  If  you  had  had  a  grain  of 
consideration  for  me,  being  a  man  and  better  able  to 
judge  such  things,  you  would  never  have  persuaded 
me  to  it.  You  took  advantage  of  me  in  a  weak 
moment,  as  you  know,  and  you  must  not  blame  me 
now. 

'/I  was  never  intended  for  a  poor  man's  wife.  I  am 
as  little  use  to  the  poor  man  as  he  is  to  me.  I  should 
be  a  fool  to  miss  the  opportunity  Ludwig  offers  me  a 
second  time.  A  woman  is  only  fair  to  herself  and 
others  when  she  makes  the  best  of  her  opportunities. 
It  is  impossible  to  live  decently  and  straightforwardly 
on  a  narrow  income.  Ludwig' s  income  will  put  me 
beyond  temptation.  You  will  not  miss  me.  You  fell 
very  soon  out  of  love  with  me,  so  that  nobody  will  be 
hurt.  Ludwig  understands  me  a  thousand  times  better, 
than  you  did.  He  does  not  expect  the  impossible 
from  any  woman.  You  can  institute  proceedings  at 
once — they  will  not  be  contested.  In  the  meantime,  I 
shall  go  and  live  with  old  Lady  Betty  abroad.  Men 
are  kittle-kattle,  and  I  am  not  going  to  give  Ludwig 
the  chance  of  tiring  of  me.  I  have  no  intention  of 
mismanaging  my  life  a  second  time. ' ' 

This  is  the  letter  they  read  to  him  while  he  was  still 
flayed  and  blind  from  the  perils  he  had  risked  for  her. 

"Oh,  don't,  Richard,  don't!"  Millicent  shuddered 
when  he  laughed. 

He  went  back  to  his  study  and  his  books  a  graver 
man.  But  the  pursuit  and  duel  his  friends  expected 


TALKIN'  SENSE.  381 

of  him  showed  no  sign  of  coming  off.  He  and  Vaux 
had  talked  the  matter  over. 

"Is  that  what  they  think?"  he  commented.  He 
laughed,  mirthlessly.  "Good  Lord!  what  an  anachron- 
ism of  which  to  be  guilty !  Alicia  and  chivalry,  Alicia 
and  heroics.  No,  Ludwig  is  not  unlike  one  of  his  own 
forest  boars,  but  he  is  too  honest  a  brute  to  be  sacri- 
ficed in  such  a  cause,  supposing  it  were  he  and  not  I. 
No,  I've  come  on  in  my  social  evolution,  Tom,  and 
for  the  first  time  in  my  life  see  the  beautiful  fitness  of 
the  law-courts  for  settling  such  affairs  of  honor." 

"You  are  hard  hit,  old  chap,  or  you  wouldn't  talk 
like  this,"  Vaux  said,  laying  a  sympathetic  hand  on 
him. 

Kershaw  leaned  a  lined  face  in  his  scarred  palms. 

"I  don't  deny  it,"  he  said.  "I  once  thought  the 
earth  not  good  enough  for  her  to  walk. ' ' 

"You  will  put  it  in  your  lawyer's  hands?" 

"No,"  he  said,  definitely. 

"Good  Lord,  Kershaw,  don't  be  a  fool.  You  must 
free  yourself,  you  cannot  remain  tied  to  her  for  the 
rest  of  your  life.  There  are  others  to  be  considered. 
Besides,  you  must  give  Ludwig  an  opportunity  of 
marrying  her." 

"Give  her  an  opportunity  of  fooling  another  man!" 

"Oh,  well,  that's  his  affair,  and  he  may  be  able  to 
keep  her  in  order.  If  what  they  say  of  him  is  true, 
he'll  probably  horsewhip  her  occasionally.  With  all 
due  respect  to  your  ex-wife,  Dick,  primitive  woman 
seems  the  better  for  it.  Anyhow,  you  can't  let  her 
take  her  chance.  You  must  think  a  bit  of  her  future, 
you  know. ' ' 

' '  I  feel  much  more  like  shooting  him  and  myself  and 
settling  the  matter  once  for  all." 

"You'd  be  a  fool.  There  was  reason  in  it  when 
wives  were  goods  and  chattels  one  had  no  more  right 
to  steal  than  any  other  cattle.  But  once  admit  that 
woman  is  a  rational  being,  and  you  admit  her  right  to 
choose  the  man  she  will  live  with." 

"Yes,  I  know  all  that,"  Kershaw  said,  impatiently. 
' '  Do  you  think  I  didn'  t  thresh  it  out  within  an  hour?' ' 


382         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

"Oh,  well,"  Vaux  urged  good-naturedly.  "You 
haven't  heard  the  truth  too  often  till  you've  decided 
to  act  on  it. ' ' 

Finally  he  lost  patience. 

"Look  here,  Kershaw,"  he  said,  "it  isn't  for  me  or 
any  man  to  talk  of.  But  if  you  had  half  a  heart  you'd 
thank  heaven  for  the  chance  you've  got.  Let  Alicia 
go  to  the  devil  if  she  likes.  But  Millicent  Rivers 
deserves  something  of  you.  You're  a  decent  sort  of 
chap  enough,  but  it  takes  a  woman  to  believe  you  or 
any  other  chap  deserves  what  she  gives  you — you  know 
that  deuced  well  enough. ' ' 

"I  know  nothing  of  the  kind,"  Kershaw  denied 
sternly. 

"Oh,  good  Lord,  what  a  liar  you  are!  You  needn't 
be  afraid  I  shall  talk.  I  don't  want  to  go  prying 
into  women's  hearts,  and  their  poor  white  little  secrets. 
Why  the  devil  she  should  eat  her  soul  out  for  a  great 
verse-making  fool — " 

He  told  him  then  how  Millicent  had  forgone  her 
fortune. 

"Find  out  if  it  isn't  true,"  he  said,  "and  then  post 
up  by  the  next  express,  and  tell  your  lawyers  to  hurry 
things  for  all  they're  worth,  and  if  you  weren't  such 
an  ink-and-paper  cynic  you'd  know  they'd  be  worth  a 
damned  deal  more  than  you  or  I  or  any  other  average 
smokin',  drinkin',  swearin',  buffer  of  a  chap  deserves. 
How  do  you  do,  Lady  Kershaw?  I'm  talkin'  sense 
and  virtue  to  the  major  here.  Thank  heaven  you've 
come  to  relieve  me.  It's  rippin'  fatiguin'  work  usin" 
thews  and  sinews  one  isn't  used  to." 


WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW.  383 


CHAPTER  XL. 

"And  straightway  seeing  her  exceedynge  comeliness,  little 
winged  creatures,  named  Wyshes,  did  fly  to  her  and  there  abyde. " 

On  that  day  whereon  the  decree  nisi  was  made  abso- 
lute Kershaw  sought  Millicent. 

"I  am  two  years  too  late,"  he  said.  "I  have  been 
a  wretched  fool." 

She  had  come  in  from  the  garden.  Her  arms  were 
heaped  with  flowers.  She  was  singing  under  her 
breath.  When  she  saw  his  face,  she  set  the  flowers 
down  suddenly.  She  stood  trembling  all  over. 

When  she  heard  his  words  she  broke  out  crying: 

"Yes,"  she  cried,  "it  is  too  late.  I  could  not  come 
to  love  through — through  that." 

"Oh,  don't  say  it — don't  say  it,"  he  groaned.  "I 
well  deserve  it ;  but  give  me  something  more  than  I 
deserve." 

She  shook  her  head  pitifully,  tears  streaming  over 
her  face. 

"Do  you  love  me?"  he  cried,  passionately. 

She  put  her  arms  about  his  neck.  She  laid  her 
cheek  above  his  heart. 

"Ah,  my  dearest,  do  I  not — do  I  not,"  she  faltered. 

"Have  I  not  loved  you  all  along.  Richard,  just  for 
this  once  kiss  me  as  though  there  were  nothing  between 
us,  and  then — then  I  will  go  away ;  but,  dear  Richard, 
kiss  me  first — " 

"There  is  nothing  between  us,"  he  cried,  straining 
her  to  him.  "Things  are  only  human,  dearest. 
Nothing  comes  perfect  to  anybody  in  this  world — 
nothing" — he  added  passionately,  "unless  it  is  you  to 
me.  I  am  a  thousand  times  unworthy,  I  can  only 
offer  you  a  smirched  name.  I  have  no  right,  I 
know — ' ' 

"Oh,  I  should  have  been  so  glad,"  she  sobbed,  "so 
proud.  That  first  day  I  saw  you  I  thought  you  like 


384        WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

King  Arthur,  and  so  you  have  always  seemed.  But, 
Richard,  it  would  never  seem  like  a  true  marriage  so 
long  as  Alicia  is  living. ' ' 

"You  may  depend  upon  it,  Alicia  won't  die,"  he  said, 
ruefully. 

But  he  failed  to  persuade  her. 

A  week  later  he  steamed  for  India.  A  certain  type 
of  Englishman  experiences  an  insuperable  craving  to 
start  traveling  and  killing,  not  only  when  it  is  a  fine 
day,  but  also  when  his  love  affairs  go  wrong. 

When  he  had  gone  Millicent  sat  down  and  cried 
her  eyes  out.  Then,  with  a  woman's  perversity,  she 
ran  to  the  window,  and  waited  for  him  to  come  back. 
Long  before  he  came  back  she  had  learned,  by  way  of 
a  hungry,  miserable  heart,  the  truth  of  that  he  had 
said,  that  we  poor  humans  must  be  content  to  take 
our  happiness  with  alloy — thankfully,  for  even  so  it 
may  be  very  sweet,  and  after  all  what  gods  are  we  that 
we  should  reject  because  the  cup  life  offers  has  a  sting 
of  bitter  in  it ! 

While  Millicent  waited,  a  number  of  things  hap- 
pened. And  first  and  foremost  Alicia  became  the 
Princess  Ludwig,  and,  as  might  have  been  predicted, 
presently  set  about  stalking  game  still  higher.  But 
Ludwig  was  a  person  of  hot  blood  and  primitive 
instincts,  and  the  issue  of  it  was  that  before  two  years 
had  passed,  Alicia  was  found  one  evening  with  a 
bullet  wound  in  one  of  her  fair  temples,  and,  indeed, 
the  temple  was  so  fair  and  finely  modeled  that  had  it 
shrined  a  wit  less  paltry,  that  red,  small  mouth  where 
the  bullet  entered,  and  the  bloodstained  horror  of  the 
corn-colored  hair  where  the  bullet,  laden  with  her 
life,  went  out,  would  have  seemed  terribly  pitiful. 
They  who  did  not  know  Alicia,  but  allowed  themselves 
to  be  guided  by  the  coroner's  verdict,  wondered  why 
so  lovely  and  fortunate  a  woman  should  have  shot 
herself.  They  who  knew  her  did  not  express  the  least 
surprise  that  Ludwig  should  have  taken  the  law  into 
his  own  hands. 

At  the  time  of  the  trial  Mrs.  Askew- Hickox  was  a 
great  person,  for  had  she  not  been  intimately 


WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW.  385 

acquainted  with  the  late  beautiful  princess  whose 
untimely  suicide  was  creating  so  romantic  a  sensation? 

"It  was  before  Sir  Askew  got  his  baronetcy  that  I 
last  met  her, ' '  she  said,  both  in  and  out  of  Winkworth, 
for  since  Sir  Askew  got  his  baronetcy  Winkworth  has 
not  been  of  sufficient  size  to  hold  her  ladyship. 

"Of  late  she  lived  so  much  abroad,"  she  continued, 
' '  that  we  have  seen  but  little  of  one  another.  It  has 
been  a  very  sad  loss  to  me  indeed." 

Sir  Askew  is  a  risen  man,  but  he  does  not  look  a 
happy  one.  And  I  think  it  may  be  said  that  in  nine- 
teen cases  out  of  twenty  the  man  who  began  life  as  an 
office-boy  and  ends  it  as  a  baronet  has,  long  ere  he 
reaches  the  baronet  stage,  parted  with  everything  to 
make  life  worth  living. 

"The  deuce  only  knows  how  we're  going  to  get  rid 
of  the  pile  I'm  making  out  of  that  South  African  deal, 
Ally,"  he  said,  gloomily.  "I  wish  to  heaven  I'd  never 
gone  into  it." 

"We  could  manage  with  a  couple  more  carriages," 
her  ladyship  returned  lightly. 

"Why,  you've  got  half-a-dozen  already.  And  you 
can't  possibly  use  more  than  three." 

"Nothing  looks  better  than  to  have  a  superfluity  of 
things,"  she  insisted,  with  the  grand  air  which  had 
been  poor  Askew' s  undoing,  for  he  had  always  been 
striving  to  live  up  to  it. 

"If  I  were  to  take  a  header  overboard  from  Clutter- 
buck's  yacht  next  week,"  he  reflected,  sardonically, 
"I  wonder  if  she'd  give  me  anything  more  than  a 
magnificent  funeral!" 


Millicent  left  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  in  a  seventh  heaven 
of  social  achievement.  Not  only  was  Mrs.  Malcolm  a 
daily  visitor  at  Poplar  Villa,  but  that  good  lady  who 
was  on  friendly  terms  with  all  the  county  folk,  had 
got  into  a  habit  of  calling  for  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  or 
the  children  to  accompany  her  in  her  daily  drive,  for 
all  Winkworth  to  see  and  wonder  at.  For  little  Mrs. 
Kew  at  this  period  of  her  existence  surpassed  herself 
25 


386         WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

in  bonnet-making,  and  to  watch  her  sitting  beside  her 
new  friend  in  all  the  pride  of  the  position  and  a  bonnet 
which  out-Parisianed  Paris,  her  gray  eyes  alight  again 
and  young  with  pleasure,  a  flush  on  her  cheeks,  and 
the  pretty  ghost  of  resurrected  dimples  in  her  smile, 
was  as  pleasant  a  sight  as  Winkworth  needed  to  see. 
"And  where  do  you  buy  your  bonnets,  my  dear?" 
Mrs.  Malcolm  inquired,  with  her  eyes  on  Mrs.  Kew- 
Barling's  latest  creation. 

Mrs.  Barling  experienced  a  weak  moment.  But 
sincerity  triumphed. 

"I  make  them  myself,"  she  said,  meeting  the  elder 
woman's  look. 

It  was  not  news  to  Mrs.  Malcolm,  Mrs.  Malcolm  had 
eyes  so  exceptionally  shrewd.  But  she  was  pleased 
with  her  little  friend's  candor.  She  leaned  forward 
and  patted  her  hand  gently. 

"Now,  who  would  have  thought  it?"  she  said, 
smoothly. 

I  need  scarcely  tell  you  that  Winkworth  was  soon 
asking  itself  who  were  these  Kew-Barlings  whom 
Mrs.  Malcolm  had  taken  up.  And  Mrs.  Malcolm 
being  a  social  power,  Winkworth  set  about  placating 
her  by  leaving  its  cards  on  the  Kew-Barlings.  And 
one  day  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  realized  her  Life's  Dream. 
She  gave  an  evening  reception,  whereat  hired  per- 
formers entertained  her  guests,  and  Sir  Askew  and 
Lady  Hickox  were  among  the  number. 

"Well,  Molly,"  Kew-Barling  addressed  her,  yawn- 
ing, when  it  was  over,  "we've  been  very  smart  this 
evening.  Now,  I  hope  you  are  happy." 

But  Mrs.  Kew-Barling  leaned  a  tired  head  against 
him,  heedless  of  frills  and  chiffons  of  the  latest  mode. 

"I  didn't  enjoy  it  a  bit,  dear,"  she  sighed.  "It  was 
very  smart,  but  nobody  cared  two  pins  about  us." 

As  for  Ruby  she  acquired  so  fine  an  art  of  riding  in 
a  carriage  that,  with  her  mother-made  Dutch  bonnets 
and  her  grand  airs,  one  might  readily  have  mistaken 
her  for  mistress  both  of  Mrs.  Malcolm  and  of  Mrs. 
Malcolm's  carriage! 

"The  little  minx,"  cried  the  latter  lady  helplessly; 


WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW.  387 

"I  declare  I  am  almost  afraid  to  give  an  order  to 
my  own  coachman,  she  sets  there  with  so  much  self- 
possession.  ' ' 

For  the  question  of  mastery  between  these  two  has 
not  yet  been  determined,  and,  indeed,  if  it  were  to  be, 
Mrs.  Malcolm  would  lose  a  very  sweet  and  only  lately 
discovered  zest  in  life. 

"One  never  knows  whether  to  kiss  her  or  to  slap 
her,"  she  protests,  in  a  tangle  of  perplexity  and 
admiration.  "She  stands  up  to  one  like  a  little  pink- 
faced,  red-legged  lion.  I'm  sure  one  day  she'll  be  the 
death  of  me  with  her  curls  and  tantrums." 

But  when  Mr.  Kew-Barling  one  evening  let  fall  a 
hint  of  retiring  from  Winkworth  and  returning  to 
Clapham,  Mrs.  Malcolm,  between  her  heart  and  her 
pride,  suffered  a  very  bad  week. 

She  appeared  at  the  end  of  it  in  the  library  of 
Poplar  Villa.  Her  plump  face  was  not  noticeable  tor 
its  plumpness,  and  the  hand  she  extended  to  Mr.  Kew- 
Barling  was  strangely  unsteady. 

"I  am  a  plain  woman,  sir,"  she  said,  in  matter-of- 
fact  tones,  "and  an  old-fashioned  one.  I  do  not  easily 
make  friends.  I  am  fond  of  your  wife  and  of" — her 
voice  for  a  moment  was  curiously  agitated,  but  she 
cleared  her  throat  fiercely — "of  the  little  girl.  I 
should  be  sorry  to  lose  you  as  neighbors.  If  now, 
your  leaving  is  a  question  of  means — "  Mrs.  Malcolm 
spread  a  legal  document  on  Mr.  Barling's  table. 

"In  any  case,"  she  continued,  "I  have  set  aside  this 
money  for  the  child.  You  and  she — and  I,  sir — might 
just  as  well  have  the  benefit  of  it  now — Why,  bless  my 
soul,  if  there  isn't  the  little  minx  herself.  And  what  a 
naughty,  naughty  girl  to  ink  her  pretty  frock." 

"Daddy,"  whispered  Ruby,  clinging  frightened  to 
her  father.  "Why  is  Maklum  crying?" 

I  cannot  relate  certainly  in  what  manner  sturdy 
Kew-Barling  disposed  of  Mrs.  Malcolm's  proposition, 
but  I  can  state  that  the  Kew-Barlings  did  not  return 
to  Clapham,  for  the  last  time  I  was  at  Winkworth  sta- 
tion I  encountered  Mrs.  Malcolm  leaving  the  booking- 
office  with  a  sheaf  of  tickets  in  one  hand,  two  large 


388      WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW. 

spades  and  a  bucket  in  the  other,  Robby  and  Ruby 
with  exultant  countenances  and  new  seaside  costumes 
on  either  side  of  her,  while  in  her  rear  came  a  nurse 
with  the  melancholy  baby — now  distinctly  less  melan- 
choly— in  her  arms.  Punch  in  a  state  of  fierce  excite- 
ment tugged  at  a  chain  in  the  hand  of  a  porter.  The 
battle-gleam  was  in  his  eye.  The  scent  of  "Minns" 
was  in  his  nostrils. 

"We  have  had  measles,  and  are  off  for  a  spell  at  the 
sea,"  Mrs.  Malcolm  explained,  breathlessly.  I  pre- 
sume that  "we"  and  "measles"  applied  to' the  Barling 
children  only,  for  Mrs.  Malcolm  must  long  ere  this 
have  put  away  childish  things ! 

\ 
******* 

When  Millicent  had  eaten  her  heart  out  over  a 
period  of  months,  Kershaw  came  back. 

Lady  Kershaw 's  health  having  failed,  Millicent  had 
made  her  home  at  The  Towers. 

He  sent  one  long  searching  look  at  her  as  she  went 
to  meet  him,  for  the  Princess  Ludwig  was  still  flutter- 
ing brilliantly  through  life. 

He  took  her  hands  tenderly  in  his. 

"Well,"  he  submitted,  "and  how  is  it  to  be?" 

"Your  way,"  she  answered.  "There  is  no  Marriage 
but  Love." 

A  month  later  Roldermere  was  the  scene  of  a  double 
wedding.  For  in  that  which  must  surely  have  been  an 
exceptionally  brilliant  moment,  Vaux  had  persuaded 
Gladys  Osborne  that  all  of  life  worth  having  is  not  con- 
tained by  the  angles  of  Euclid.  And  as  Gladys  was 
possessor  of  a  little  fortune  of  her  own,  the  thing  was 
not  impracticable. 

"But  it  is  a  very  risky  experiment  on  my  part,"  he 
said,  smiling  down  upon  her  vivid  face.  It  was  a  soft 
face  at  that  moment,  and  not  particularly  alarming. 

She  smiled  up  in  response. 

"Do  you  remember  that  evening  when  I  was 
Aspasia?" 

"By  Jove  and  all  that  is  incomparable,  I  should  think 


WOMAN  AND  THE  SHADOW.  389 

I  do,"  he  said,  energetically,  and  with  a  whimsical 
twinkle  of  eye. 

"I  believe  you  are  thinking  of  that  abominable 
dress?"  she  challenged  him. 

"Not  altogether,"  he  said. 

"Well,"  she  urged,  "if  I  had  the  consistency  to 
carry  such  a  detestable  situation  through — for  your 
sake" — she  slurred  this  over  with  the  shamefacedness 
of  a  person  given  neither  to  concession  nor  confession 
— "shall  I  not  have  the  consistency  to  be  a  decent  sort 
of  wife?" 

"For  whose  sake?"  he  demanded. 

"Why,  for  my  own,  sir!"  said  she. 

"And  the  angle  HIM  shall  be  equal  to  the  angle 
HER.  Quod  est  demonstrandum,"  he  submitted,  in  a 
final  brilliant  moment. 


THE   END. 


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